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A 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES 

BY 

J. N. LARNED 

Formerly Superintendent of the Buffalo Public Library 
Editor and Compiler of " History for Ready 
Reference and Topical Reading " 



WITH TOPICAL ANALYSES, RESEARCH QUESTIONS 
AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



By HOMER P. LEWIS 

Principal of the English High School 
Worcester, Afass. 




BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

<€bt Riticreibc press, Cambti&ge 

L ' 



38561 



LiOr»i y of Conaresw 

iwo Cortes fitceiwEo 
AUG 25 1900 

fcpyrigtit entry 

SECONO COPY. 

Delivered t* 

OROtR DIVISION, 
SFP 1 1900 



COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY HOUGHTON, MITFLIN & CO. 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






PREFACE. 

I should like to be able to describe this book on its 
title-page more correctly than by calling it a " History of 
England ; " for it is much less than that, and it is also 
much more. It is necessarily a sketch, rather than a his- 
tory, in the right sense of that term ; and the people 
whose national life and growth are its subject ceased long 
ago to be those, alone, of that part of the island of Great 
Britain which bears the name of England on the map. 
A better description of the book would be given by say- 
ing that it is an outline of the principal circumstances 
and events in the history of the English people and the 
British nation, especially of those most connected with 
the growth of the English constitution of government, 
with its extension to the United Kingdom of Great 
Britain and Ireland, and with its expansion in sovereignty 
over a vast empire of British colonies and dependencies 
in every quarter of the globe. That is more explanation, 
however, than can be put into a title, and there seems to 
be no escape from the common usage which gives a larger 
meaning to " England " and less to " History " than they 
ought to have. 

In so small a book as this must be for school use, even 
the outlining of events which run through nearly two 
thousand years has to be meagrely done, with a stiff 
restraint kept always on the writer's hand. He can 



iv PREFACE. 

hardly more than name the chief actors of the history, 
— hardly more than mention some few things that they 
did. He can make no attempt to bring them before the 
minds of his readers like living persons, moving in real 
scenes. His brief and crowded narrative will only be 
interesting so far as one who reads it is made to feel 
that the things most essential are being told, with simple 
clearness, in such an order and so connectedly as to show 
streams of influence and cause flowing through them, and 
that it is leading him easily along the main lines of devel- 
opment that run through English history from its begin- 
ning to its end. Those are the qualities that I have tried 
to give to this book, aiming to make it show as much of 
the outcoming of each succeeding state of things from 
that which went before it, and as much of the larger 
meanings of English history, as can appear in so brief an 
account. 

Those meanings are quite as interesting and important 
to us, of the New World, as they are to the people of the 
British Isles. Down, at least, to the time when our 
nation branched from the old English trunk, their his- 
tory is equally ours. It is true that we have become a 
remarkably composite people, and that the forefathers 
of the generation now living in the United States came 
from many different lands ; but more came from the 
British islands than from all other countries, and they 
brought us more than we have taken from all other 
sources combined. Along with the language that we 
speak, and the great old literature that delights us most, 
our English forefathers brought to us the main principles 



PREFACE. V 

of our government and our law, and the better part of 
the ideas, the modes of feeling, and the habits of mind 
by which our national character has been formed. They 
brought to us our system of elected representatives, for 
the making of laws and the direction of public affairs ; 
our system of township and county local government ; 
the whole system of our courts, of our juries, of the 
writs which protect us from arbitrary imprisonment ; and 
they brought the precious " common law " of England, 
under which half of our personal rights are enjoyed. 
Above all, they brought to America, at the beginning, 
an understanding of political freedom and a preparation 
for self-government that enabled them to work wisely in 
founding the institutions of the Republic. It is literally 
a fact that our nation is the offspring of England ; and, 
while it has fed its own immense growth in an independ- 
ent way, yet its form, its distinguishing features, and its 
very spirit, are derived from the parent that gave it birth. 
Naturally it follows that, excepting their own, there is 
no part of human history so important and interesting 
to Americans as the history of the English people. 
Indeed, their understanding of the meaning of their 
own history depends on their acquaintance with what 
went before it in the land which trained the founders 
of their national life. To trace from seed and root in 
England the many traits and habits, modes and forms, 
principles and sentiments, that have had a transplanted 
growth in the New World, is the necessary beginning of 
a profitable study of the history of the United States. 



v i PREFACE. 

Some features of the book, accessory to its narrative, 
seem to call for a few explanatory words : — 

(i.) The Surveys of General History, of which one 
will be found for each century after the Twelfth, be- 
sides a preceding one which covers the first seven cen- 
turies after the fall of Rome. I have introduced these 
because the story of England cannot be told without 
allusions, on almost every page, to affairs in other coun- 
tries, which need some kind of explanation for those who 
have no broad knowledge of general history already in 
their minds. Instead of thrusting such explanations, 
disconnectedly, here and there, into the English narra- 
tive, I have thought it better to supply them at inter- 
vals, by these glancing surveys of events and conditions 
in the world at large, which faintly give to English his- 
tory the background that it needs. They are entirely de- 
tached from the text of the English narrative, being 
printed in a different type, and arranged in a different 
form. It is the intention that teachers shall make such 
use of them as they find best. Some may wish to have 
them studied by the pupil ; others may have them merely 
read ; still others may refer to them, only, as occasion sug- 
gests. Their relation to the narrative text is such that 
they can be used much or little, as the teacher desires. 

(2.) The Topics, References, and Research Questions 
which accompany each chapter. These have been pre- 
pared for the book by Mr. Homer P. Lewis, Principal 
of the English High School at Worcester, Massachu- 
setts, whose experience and success in teaching English 
history give high value to his topical analyses of the 



PREFACE. vn 

text and his suggestions for thought and reading beyond 
it. The "Topics" are an accurate synopsis of the text 
and serve a double purpose, enabling the pupil to ex- 
amine himself, and presenting to him, at the same time, 
a grouped view of each subject. The " References " are 
to the books which Mr. Lewis finds best for school use, 
and they are specific, — closely connected with the text. 
For nearly every section in the book there is at least one 
reference, and important sections have a dozen or more. 
The arrangement of the references is planned to give 
great assistance to teachers in assigning work to their 
pupils. The " Research Questions " have a double aim. 
In some cases they enlarge the text ; in others they deal 
with matter suggested by the text. They often bring 
forward a lesson from the text to kindred problems, situ- 
ations or institutions of the present day. 

(3.) The Index, in which teachers will find more than 
indexes commonly contain. It is made to be a working 
part of the book, (a.) It is analytical of the topics of 
the book, tracing through it the greater subjects of Eng- 
lish history (such as Parliament, the Monarchy, Minis- 
terial Government, the Church, etc.), and outlining the 
development of them, (b.) It is a geographical guide, 
locating places mentioned in the text by the page of the 
map on which they are found, and by an approximate 
indication of latitude and longitude for each, (c.) It is 
a pronouncing vocabulary. 

(4.) The Maps. These have been specially prepared 
for the book, with carefulness to have them show all 
places mentioned in the narrative of English history, but 



V1 " PREFACE. 

to be simplified as much as possible otherwise, contain- 
ing no unnecessary details. 

(5.) The Illustrations, which offer no imagined scenes, 
but are wholly representative of historical realities — 
portraits of important personages, and pictures, mostly 
photographic, of things and places which are related in 
some interesting way to what is recounted in the text. 
They have been chosen with care, and many of them 
will be found to have a teaching value of their own, in 
what they show of the conditions of life, the state of 
knowledge, or the art and workmanship, of past times. 

Buffalo, June, 1900. 



CONTENTS. 



BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND, TO 1066. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Britain until the English Conquest .... 1 

II. The English Conquest and Settlement ... 15 

III. The Intrusion of the Danes. 787-1066 . . . 37 
Survey of General History — Sixth to 

Twelfth Centuries 52 

THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION, 1066-1199. 

IV. The Norman Conquest and Its First Effects. 

William I. 1066-1087 59 

V. The Fusing of the New Nation. Norman Kings : 

William II., Henry I., Stephen. 1087-1154 ... 82 
VI. The Upbuilding of English Law. Angevin, or 
Early Plantagenet, Kings: Henry II., Richard I. 
1 1 54-1 199 109 

THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM, 1 199-1450. 

Survey of General History — The Thirteenth 

Century 131 

VII. The Rise of the English Commons. Angevin 
and Later Plantagenet Kings: John, Henry III., 

Edward I. 1 199-1307 135 

Survey of General History — The Four- 
teenth Century 161 

VIII. Vainglory in Foreign War. The Last Planta- 
genet Kings : Edward II., Edward III., Richard II. 
1307-1399 ......... 165 



CONTENTS. 

IX. Medleval Life in England 190 

Survey of General History — The Fifteenth 
Century 202 

X. Parliamentary Kings. Lancastrian Kings : Henry 

IV., Henry V., Henry VI. 1399-1450 207 



RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION, 1450-1603. 

XI. Factious King-Making — Civil War — Politi- 
cal Decline. Lancastrian and Yorkist Kings: 
Henry VI., Edward IV., Richard III. 1450-1485 228 
Survey of General Historv — The Sixteenth 

Century 248 

XII. Arbitrary Monarchy — The Founding of the 
National Church. Tudor Kings: Henry VII., 
Henry VIII. 1485-1547 256 

XIII. Protestant Reformation and Catholic Reac- 

tion. Tudor Sovereigns: Edward VI., Mary. 

1547-1558 287 

XIV. The Elizabethan Age. The Last of the Tudors : 

Queen Elizabeth. 1 558-1603 305 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION, 1603-1688. 

Survey of General History — The Seven- 
teenth Century 342 

XV. Waning Reverence for Royalty. The First 
Stuart King: James I. of England and VI. of 

Scotland. 1603-1625 * 349 

XVI. The Quarrel between King and People. The 

Second Stuart King: Charles I. 1625-1642 . . 372 
XVII. The Overthrow of the Monarchy. Charles I. 

1642-1649 403 

XVIII. Commonwealth and Protectorate. The Rump 

Parliament and Oliver Cromwell. 1649-1660 . . 424 
XIX. Restoration and Revolution. Stuart Kings : 

Charles II., James II. 1660-168S 448 



CONTENTS. xi 

THE PERIOD OF ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT, 

i 688- i 820. 

Survey of General History — The Eigh- 
teenth Century 477 

XX. The Settlement of a Constitutional Mon- 
archy. William and Mary, Anne. 1 688-1 714 . 484 
XXI. The Establishing of Ministerial Govern- 
ment. Hanoverian Kings: George I., George II. 

1 714-1742 5°9 

XXII. Expansion of Empire. George II. 1743-1760 . 520 

XXIII. Backward Steps and Loss of Empire. George 

III. 1760-1788 53i 

XXIV. Conflict with the French Revolution. 

George III. 1789-1800 553 

Survey of General History — The Nine- 
teenth Century 561 

XXV. Conflict with Napoleon. George III. 1800- 

1820 57i 



THE DEMOCRATIC ERA, 1820-1899. 

XXVI. The Ending of the Rule of the Landlords. 

George IV., William IV., Victoria. 1 820-1 846 . 587 
XXVII. Growth of Democracy. Queen Victoria. 1846- 

1899 6 °7 



APPENDIX. 

The British Empire in 1899 634 

A Working Library 636 

An Additional List of Books 637 

Illustrative Fiction in Poetry and Prose .... 642 

Index • ■ 6 49 



ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Westminster Abbey. From a photograph. Frontispiece. 

Ancient Block of Tin found at Trereife, Cornwall, 
and preserved in the museum at penzance. from 
the Archa>ological Journal, xxiii. 285 4 

Stonehenge. From a photograph 7 

Remains of a Roman Bath, at Bath. From Windle's 
Life of Early Britain, p. 149 9 

Remnant of Roman Military Road called Watling 
Street. From a photograph made in Delamere Forest, 
ten miles from Chester. The ruts seen are worn in the stone 
foundation 10 

Ancient Jutish Boat found buried in a Peat Bog in 
Nydam, South Jutland. From Engelhardt's Denmark 
in the Early Iron Age, pi. i 17 

Early English Spears and Knives found in Kentish 
Barrows. From Jewitt's Half-Hours among Some Eng- 
lish Antiquities, p. 108 20 

A Thane's House. From Harl. MS. 603, as shown in Cutts's 
Parish Priests 25 

Saxon Cross at Ruthwell, about 680 a. d. From Cutts's 
Parish Priests, p. 25 27 

Remains of an Ancient Celtic Church on the Island 
of Eilean-na-Naoimh, near Iona. From Dowden's 
Celtic Church in Scotland, p. 113 29 

Iron Swords of the Vikings, found in Schleswig. 
From the Archceological Journal, xxiii. 182 39 

Alfred the Great. From an engraving by Vertue in An- 
nates rerum gestarum Alfredi Jlfagni, by Asserius Mene- 
vensis (Wise's ed., Oxford, 1722) 41 

Church of St. Lawrence, at Bradford-on-AvoN, Wilt- 
shire. From Cutts's Parish Priests 44 



xiv ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES. 

The Westminster Abbey of Edward the Confessor, 
as represented on the Bayeux Tapestry. From 
Jules Comte's La Tapisserie de Bayeux 47 

William the Conqueror and Attendants : Bayeux 
Tapestry. From Jules Comte's La Tapisserie de Bayeux, 
pi. xxvi. and xxvii 60 

Norman Vessel of the Eleventh Century : restored 
from the Bayeux Tapestry. From Lacroix's Military 
and Religious Life in the Middle Ages, p. 76 61 

The Battle of Senlac, as partly represented on 
the Bayeux Tapestry. From Jules Comte's Tapisserie 
de Bayeux, pi. lxvi 63 

The Tower of London in 1597. (The earliest drawing.) 
From John Bayley's Tower of London, p. 1 65 

Plan of the Manor of Burton Agnes, as it appeared 
in 1809. From Canon Isaac Taylor's "Domesday Survi- 
vals " in Domesday Stu dies, i. 55 71 

Facsimiles of Entries in Domesday Book. From Gar- 
diner's Student's History of England, p. 1 12. The Domes- 
day Book in two volumes of vellum manuscript, one a large 
folio, the other a quarto, is preserved in the Public Record 
Office, London 73 

A King's Deathbed : Bishops and Abbots attending. 
From a twelfth century MS. as represented in J. R. 
Planche's Encyclopaedia of Costume, i. 1 53 83 

Keep of Rochester Castle. Called by Professor Freeman 
"the noblest example of the Norman military architecture 
of the next generation after William I." From a photograph 85 

Interior of Westminster Hall. From a photograph . 87 

Henry I. From Hollis's Monumental Effigies 88 

Exchequer Table, as depicted in the " Red Book of 
the Exchequer Court of Ireland," Fifteenth Cen- 
tury. From William Longman's Edward the Third . . 91 

Nave of St. Alban's Abbey Church. This was built be- 
tween 1077 and 1093, and is a good example of the Norman 
style of architecture. From a photograph 94 

A Cistercian Monk. From Planche's Encyclopaedia of 
Costume, ii. 64 95 

Durham Cathedral. (Built mostly in the reign of Henry I.) 
From a photograph 96 

Stephen of Blois. After an engraving by G. Vertue . . 98 



ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES. XV 

"The Standard" of the Battle of 1138. From MS. 
Arundel 150 (British Museum), an early thirteenth century 
copy of part of the Chronicle of Roger of Hoveden ... 99 

Thomas Becket and his Secretary. From an old MS. 
at Trinity College, Cambridge 112 

Transept of Canterbury Cathedral, the Scene of 
Becket's Murder. From a photograph 113 

Effigies of Henry II. and his Queen, Eleanor, in the 
Abbey Church of Fontevrault. From Blanche's En- 
cyclopedia of Costume, i. 273 116 

A Mediaeval Author at Work. From an old MS., as 
shown in Cutts's Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, 
p. 83 121 

Hood of Chain Mail, and Cylindrical Helmet with 
close Vizor, of the Twelfth Century. From the 
Archaeological Journal, xxii. 8 122 

Effigy of Richard I. in the Abbey Church of Fonte- 
vrault. From Stothard's Monumental Effigies . . . .123 

Effigy of King John in Worcester Cathedral. From 
Stothard's Monumental Effigies 136 

Runnymede. From a photograph 139 

Facsimile Extract from One of the Original Copies 
of the Magna Carta in the British Museum. The 
passages are a portion of the Preamble, the Forty-Sixth 
Clause, and the Attestation. From Craik and MacFarlane's 
Pictorial History of England, i. 557 140 

London early in the Thirteenth Century. After a 
drawing by Matthew Paris, showing the Tower, the old St. 
Paul's, Westminster Palace, and Lambeth. From Hubert 
Hall's Court Life under the Plantagenets, p. 27 142 

Henry III. as represented on his Tomb in West- 
minster Abbey. From Craik and MacFarlane's Pictorial 
History of England, i. 672 143 

Louis IX. of France (Saint Louis). As painted on glass 
in the Cathedral of Chartres. From Boutell's Arms and 
Armour, p. 112 145 

Edward I. After the engraving by George Vertue of the 
statue at Carnarvon Castle. From Clifford's Life and 
Reign of Ediuard the First 147 

The Great Seal of Edward I. From Gardiner's Stu- 
dent's History of England, p. 209 149 



XVI ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES. 

William Wallace. After an engraving by S. Alphonse of 
the statue by W. G. Stevenson. From the Art Journal, 
xxxvii. 335 153 

The Steelyard, London. After an engraving by Hollar 
in 1641. From Herbert's Twelve Great Livery Companies 
of London, i. 11 154 

Merton College, Oxford, founded in 1264 by Bishop Mer- 
ton, of Rochester. From Lang's Oxford, p. 185 . . . .155 

Edward III. After a wall-painting, formerly in St. Stephen's 
Chapel, Westminster. From Longman's Edward III., vol. i. 168 

Crossbowman with his Shield. From Longman's Ed- 
ward III, i. 257 169 

Archer with his Sheaf of Arrows. From Longman's 
Edward III, i. 264 170 

John of Gaunt. Painted by L. Cornelisz. From South 
Kensington National Portraits, vol. i 176 

John Wiclif. From South Kensington National Portraits, 
vol. vi. Painter unknown 177 

Tomb and Part of the Armor of the Black Prince 
in Canterbury Cathedral. From Stanley's Historical 
Memorials of Canterbury, p. 120 179 

John Ball, the Priest, preaching from Horseback, 
after a MS. of Froissart's " Chronicle." From Cutts's Par- 
ish Priests, p. 171 180 

Richard II. From South Kensington National Portraits, 
vol. i. Painter unknown 182 

Geoffrey Chaucer. From the National Portrait Gallery. 
Painter unknown 184 

Manor-House at Mellichope, Shropshire, built in the 
latter half of the twelfth century. From Thomas Wright's 
Homes of Other Days, p. 149 192 

Henry IV. From the National Portrait Gallery. Painter 
unknown 208 

Henry V. From the National Portrait Gallery. Painter 
unknown 212 

John, Duke of Bedford. From Reresby's Travels and 
Memoirs, p. 2 217 

Statue of Joan of Arc, by Fremiet, Place des Pyramides, 
Paris. From Louis Gonse's La Sculpture Francaise 
depuis le XI V&"* siecle 219 

Margaret of Anjou. After an old MS. at Jesus College. 
Oxford. Archaeological Journal, viii. 98 220 



ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES, xvii 

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. From Walpole's Royal 
and Noble Authors, vol. i 222 

Henry VI. From the National Portrait Gallery. Painter 
unknown • 231 

Edward IV. From the National Portrait Gallery. Painter 
unknown 235 

Warwick, the King-maker. After the Rous Roll. From 
C. W. Oman's Warwick 236 

Armor of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. 
From Boutell's Arms and Armour, p. 149 237 

The murdered Prince, called Edward V. After an 
engraving by W. Ridley. From a painting in Lambeth Pal- 
ace 240 

Richard III. From the National Portrait Gallery. Painter 
unknown 241 

Oldest known Representation of a Printing Press. 
From Blade's William Carton, pi. vii. p. 126 243 

Facsimile Specimen of Caxton's Printing. From Blade's 
William Caxton, pi. xiii. p. 336 244 

Henry VII. From the National Portrait Gallery. Painted, 
1505, by an unknown Flemish artist 256 

Katharine of Aragon. From the National Portrait Gal- 
lery. Painter unknown 259 

Henry VIII. After an engraving by Houbraken (from an 
original painting by Holbein), in the Gardiner Greene Hub- 
bard Collection, Library of Congress 263 

Thomas Wolsey. From the National Portrait Gallery. 
Painter unknown 264 

English Warship which conveyed Henry VIII. to 
France. From Lacroix's Military and Religious Life in 
the Middle Ages, p. 80 266 

Anne Boleyn. From the National Portrait Gallery. Painter 
unknown 268 

Sir Thomas More. After the painting by Holbein. From 
Lodge's Portraits, vol. i 272 

Thomas Cromwell. Painted by Holbein. From South Ken- 
sington National Portraits, vol. i 276 

Edward VI. and Council. After a woodcut on the title- 
page of the Statutes of 1551. From Law's History of Hamp- 
ton Court Palace 287 

Thomas Cranmer, at the Age of Fifty-Seven. From a 
painting by G. Fliccius, in the National Portrait Gallery . 289 



xviii ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES. 

Lady Jane Grey. After a drawing by Vertue. From Wal- 
pole's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. i 293 

Queen Mary Tudor, or Mary L, at the Age of Twenty- 
Eight. From a painting by Joannes Corvus in the National 
Portrait Gallery 295 

Philip II. From the painting by Titian in the Prado, Ma- 
drid 298 

Queen Elizabeth. After an engraving by Holl from an ori- 
ginal portrait in Queen Victoria's collection, St. James's Pal- 
ace. Autograph from Winsor's America 307 

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. From The Duke of Port- 
land's Collection, p. 537 310 

Sir William Cecil. After an engraving by Freeman, of the 
original painting, probably by Marc Gheeraedts, in the Na- 
tional Portrait Gallery 319 

Queen Elizabeth carried in State to Hunsdon House, 
September 18, 1571. From the original painting by Marc 
Gheeraedts, exhibited (1866) at South Kensington Mu- 
seum 323 

Spanish Armada attacked by the English Fleet. As 
represented on the ancient tapestry in the House of Lords, 
From Craik and MacFarlane's Pictorial Histo?y of Eng- 
land, ii. 675 . . 327 

Edmund Spenser. From South Kensington National Por- 
traits, vol. i. Painter unknown 330 

Richard Hooker. From Walton's Livti 330 

William Shakespeare. From " the Chandos Portrait " in the 
National Portrait Gallery 331 

Francis Bacon. From Birch's Heads of Illustrious Persons . 33 1 

James I. of England, VI. of Scotland, at the age of 
Fifty-Five. From the original painting by Paul Van 
Somer in the National Portrait Gallery 350 

Anne of Denmark, Wife of James I. (showing the "wheel 
farthingale " then worn). From PlancWs Encyclopcedia of 
Costume, i. 187 351 

Vault beneath the Old House of Lords. From Craik 
and MacFarlane's Pictorial History of England, iii. 24 . . 354 

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. From the ori- 
ginal painting by Gerard Honthorst in the National Portrait 
Gallery 361 

Sir Walter Raleigh. From Stalker's engraving published 
in London in 181 2 362 



ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES, xix 

The Manor-House at Scrooby, William Brewster's 
Residence. After a drawing by A. M. Raine 366 

Charles I. After the painting by Van Dyck 372 

John Pym. After an engraving by Houbraken. From Birch's 
Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain 375 

William Laud. From the National Portrait Gallery. Cop- 
ied by Henry Stone from the original painting by Van Dyck 
at Lambeth Palace 380 

Sir John Eliot. After Holl's engraving of the original paint- 
ing at Port Eliot, Cornwall. From Forster's Sir John Eliot, 
vol. i., frontispiece 382 

Interior of St. Giles's Church, Edinburgh. From a 
photograph 387 

Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. From The 
Duke of Portland 's Collection 390 

John Hampden. After an engraving by Houbraken in the 
Gardiner Greene Hubbard Collection, Library of Congress 393 

A Cavalier. From Craik and MacFarlane's Pictorial His- 
tory of England, Hi. 609 403 

Oliver Cromwell. From a miniature by Samuel Cooper . 405 

Prince Rupert. From an original painting by Sir Peter Lely 
in the National Portrait Gallery 408 

James Graham, Marquis of Montrose. From Birch's 
Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain 412 

Trial of Charles I., as represented by a contempo- 
rary print. From Craik and MacFarlane's Pictorial His- 
tory of England, iii. 337 419 

The Commonwealth Flag. After an original at Chatham 
Dockyard. From Clowes' Royal Navy in History, ii. 115 . 426 

Robert Blake. Painted by A. Hanneman. From South 
Kensington National Portraits, vol. ii 430 

The Great Seal of the Commonwealth ; the Rump 
Parliament is represented on the reverse. From 
Craik and MacFarlane's Pictorial History of England, iii. 

399 432 

Sir Henry Vane, the Younger. From the original paint- 
ing by William Dobson in the National Portrait Gallery . 433 

George Monk. From the original painting by Sir Peter Lely 
in the National Portrait Gallery 439 

The Puritan Dress as shown in George H. Bough- 
ton's painting, The Return of the Mayflower . . . .441 

John Milton. From the crayon drawing at Bayfordbury . 442 



xx ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES. 

Charles II. From the original painting by Mrs. Mary Beale 
in the National Portrait Gallery 449 

Titus Oates in the Pillory. From Arthur Griffith's 
Chronicles of Newgate, i. 193 457 

James II. From the original painting by John Riley in the 
National Portrait Gallery 462 

John Bunyan. After a drawing from Life by R. White in 
the British Museum. From Works of John Bunyan, vol. iii. 468 

Sir Isaac Newton. From the original painting by John Van- 
derbank in the National Portrait Gallery 468 

John Locke. From the original painting by T. Brownover 
in the National Portrait Gallery 469 

William III. From the original painting by Jan Wyck in 
the National Portrait Gallery 486 

John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough. From the 
original painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller in the National 
Portrait Gallery 493 

Queen Anne. From the original painting by John Closter- 
man in the National Portrait Gallery 497 

London Coffee-House in the Reign of Anne. From 
Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Anne, i. 215 .... 499 

English Flag and Scottish Flag before 1603, and 
the Union Flag ordered by James I. in 1606. From 
Clowes' Royal Navy in History, ii. 25 501 

Hackney Coach in the Reign of Anne. From Ash- 
ton's Social Life in the Reign of Anne, ii. 170 502 

George I. From the original painting by Sir Godfrey Knel- 
ler in the National Portrait Gallery 509 

Costume of Gentlemen in 1721. From Planche's Ency- 
clopedia of Costume, ii. 305 512 

Sir Robert Walpole. After an original painting by Zincke. 
From Coxe's Memoirs of Walpole, London, 1798 . . .513 

John Wesley. Painted by George Romney. From South 
Kensington National Portraits, vcA.v 516 

William Pitt, the Elder. After an original painting by 
Richard Brompton 525 

James Wolfe. After a print in Entick's History of the Late 
War, iv. 90. London, 1764 526 

Robert Clive. From the original painting by Nathaniel 
Dance in the National Portrait Gallery 527 



ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES, xxi 

George III. After the original painting by Thomas Frye . 531 

A Stamp. From Memorial History of Boston, vol. iii. . . 535 

Lord North. From Murray's Impartial History of the Pre- 
sent War, London, 1780 539 

William Pitt, the Younger. After an original drawing by 
Copley. From Lord Stanhope's Life of William Pitt. vol. i., 
frontispiece 544 

Watt's Steam Engine in 1780. From Thurston's A His- 
tory of the Growth of the Steam Engine 546 

Edmund Burke. After an original painting by Sir Joshua 
Reynolds. From Lodge's Gallery of Portraits . . . .553 

The " Union Jack " (the national flag of the United King- 
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, since the Union), and 
The Irish Flag before 1801. From Boutell's English 
Heraldry, page 262 558 

Lord Nelson. From the painting, Nelson in the Cabin of 
the Victoi y, by Charles Lucy 573 

Charles James Fox. After an original painting by John 
Opie. From Lodge's Gallery of Portraits 574 

A Stage Coach in 1804. From Ashton's Dawn of the 
Nineteenth Century in England, i. 238 577 

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. From an 
original painting by John Lucas in the National Gallery, 
Dublin 579 

William Wordsworth. From an engraving by F. T. Stu- 
art 582 

Robert Burns. From the" original painting by Alexander 
Nasmyth in the National Portrait Gallery 582 

Sir Walter Scott. From the original painting by C. R. 
Leslie (1824) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. . . . 583 

George Canning. After an engraving by William Holl, 
from a painting by T. Stewardson 588 

Stephenson's Locomotive, " Rocket," adopted for use on 
the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, in 1829. From B. 
Cooke's British Locomotives, page 29 591 

Sir Robert Peel. After a painting by Sir Thomas Law- 
rence 595 

Daniel O'Connell. From the original miniature in the 
National Portrait Gallery, painted on ivory (1836) by Ber- 
nard Mulrenin Coo 



xxii ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES. 

The Victoria Cross, instituted in 1856 as a decoration 
awarded for notable deeds of valor. From Boutell's Eng- 
lish Heraldry 609 

The Houses of Parliament, opened in 1852. From a pho- 
tograph 613 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. From a pho- 
tograph 617 

William Ewart Gladstone. From a photograph (1884) by 
John Moffat 618 

Queen Victoria. From a photograph, 1887 623 

Charles Dickens. After a crayon drawing (1868) by Sol 
Eytinge, Jr 626 

Lord Tennyson. From a photograph 626 

Lord Macaulay. From a photograph (1857) by Claudet . 627 



MAPS. 

County Map of Great Britain and Ireland (double 

page, colored Front lining pages. 

Physical Map of Britain 2 

Roman Britain 8 

The Older Home of the English Race. From John- 
ston's School Atlas 16 

Britain, a. d. 597. From Gardiner's School Atlas of English 

History 19 

The Course of the Viking Expeditions. From Gardiner's 

School Atlas of English History 38 

Alfred's Britain, with Historical Detail, a. d. 449- 

A. D. 1 1 54 (full-page, colored) Facing 42 

The Angevin Empire of Henry II. (double page, col- 
ored) Facing no 

France at the Time of the Treaty of Bretigny . . .174 
French Territory held by the English when Joan of 

Arc appeared, a. d. 1429 218 

England during the Wars of the Roses 233 

Historical Map of Scotland 313 

The Netherlands : showing Dutch and Spanish Pos- 
sessions 318 

Ireland, a. d. 1600-A. d. 1900 (full-page, colored) . Facing 358 



ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND GENEALOGIES, xxill 

England at the Beginning of the Civil War, with 
Historical Detail from a. d. 1600 to a. d. 1900 (full- 
page, colored) Facing 404 

India, a. d. 1785 to a. d. 1900 (full-page, colored) . Facing 526 
Europe in a. d. 1825, with Historical Detail from 

a. D. 1500 TO A. d. 1900 (double page, colored) . Facing 574 
British-Boer War, South Africa, a. d. 1899-A. d. 1900 625 
The British Empire in a. d. 1900 (double page, colored). 
After Bartholomew's At la s End lining pages. 



GENEALOGIES. 



West Saxon Kings from Egbert 51 

Norman Kings from the Conqueror to Stephen . .108 

Angevin or Early Plantagenet Kings 130 

Later Plantagenet Kings 201 

Royal Houses of Lancaster, York, and Tudor . . 227 
Henry VII. from John of Gaunt, third son of Ed- 
ward III 247 

Tudor Family from Henry VII 304 

Stuart Sovereigns of Scotland from Robert Bruce 

to Mary Queen of Scots 341 

Stuart Sovereigns of Scotland and England from 

Mary Queen of Scots 476 

Hanoverian Sovereigns from James I. of England . 606 



\ 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. 
To 1066. 



CHAPTER I. 

BRITAIN UNTIL THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 

1. The Island of Great Britain. The character and 
career of the English people have been affected so 
remarkably by the geographical position of their coun- 
try that some facts concerning it are really the most 
important in their history. Because the island of Great 
Britain lies far in the north, and yet is warmed by the 
embracing waters of the Gulf Stream, it has a climate 
finely tempered, a soil fruitfully watered, and is singularly 
suited for the breeding of a hearty race. It is favored, 
too, by other natural gifts, of mines, of fisheries, of good 
harbors, sheltered inlets, and navigable streams, for the 
schooling of its people in industries at home and in 
commerce with the outer world. But the people owe 
much less to these advantages of their island than they 
do to its separation from the continent of Europe by a 
narrow channel of the sea. 

The little strait that divides Great Britain from France 
is just wide enough and stormy enough to make under- 
takings of war from one shore against the other very 



2 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. 

difficult, while peaceful intercourse is scarcely hindered 
in the least. This fortunate geographical position has 
enabled the English to go their own way for eight cen- 
Effects of turies ; to live their own life, develop their own 
insularity, institutions, work out their own career, with 
less interference and more independence than any other 









PHYSICAL MAP OF BRITAIN. 



European people. They have wasted less in neighbor- 
hood wars, have been distracted less by neighborhood 
rivalries, and, therefore, have turned more of the energies 
of their ambition into distant fields, of colonization and 



UNTIL THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 3 

commerce, building up a great colonial empire, which 
stretches to all regions of the globe. 

At the same time, and for the same reason, their atten- 
tion as a people has been centred more on their own polit- 
ical affairs, — on the doings of their government, on 
the conduct of their courts of law, on the management of 
public business in their parishes and towns. They have 
consequently kept possession, throughout their history, 
of more political rights and powers as citizens, and have 
been better trained in the practical use of them, Politlcal 
than other peoples of the old world. All of trainin e- 
this goes far towards accounting for the peculiar insti- 
tutions of free government that have grown up in Eng- 
land, and have come as an inheritance to us in America. 
The history which follows should be studied with this 
geographical fact kept clearly in mind. 

2. The Prehistoric Inhabitants of Britain. At a 
time so long ago that no date for it can be fixed, there 
were races of men in the island of Britain, and in other 
parts of Europe, about whom very little can be learned, 
beyond the fact that they lived in a savage state, hunting 
animals of many species that are found no longer in that 
part of the world. Some marks of their fires, in caves 
and on sheltering rocks ; some remains of their rude im- 
plements and weapons of stone and bone ; some surpris- 
ingly well-drawn figures of animals, etched with a sharp 
point on bits of ivory and horn ; a few skulls and frag- 
ments of human skeletons, brought occasionally to light 
from long burial in the earth, — these are the scanty 
relics that hint at the story of the prehistoric folk. 
Such hints, and the guesses founded on them, are inter- 
esting, but they bear with no importance on the history 
that leads from our own early ancestors down to our- 
selves. In a work so brief as this we must pass them by. 



4 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [ 4 th Cent. B.C. 

3. Celtic Britain. At some unknown time, the pre- 
historic inhabitants of western Europe were displaced to 
a great extent by new-comers of two races, — one, known 
as the Teutonic or Germanic, taking possession of regions 
north of the Rhine ; the other, called Celtic (sometimes 
spelled and pronounced Keltic), filling Britain, Ireland, 
Belgium, France, Switzerland, northern Italy, and northern 
Spain with the ruling peoples that were found in those 




ANCIENT BLOCK OF TIN FOUND AT TREREIFE, CORNWALL. 

countries when their recorded history begins. Where the 
Romans knew them first, in northern Italy, 
Switzerland, and the region of modern France, 

these Celtic people were given the name of Galli, and 

their country was called Gallia, or Gaul. 

The Celtic tribes which passed over to the British 

islands are supposed to have belonged to two branches 

of that race, which migrated at different times. One of 
these, distinguished as the Goidel or Gael, has 

The Gael , r . , . . . , .. 

and the left its descendants and its language in the 
ry ons. g^^h Highlands and islands, in Ireland, and 
in the Isle of Man ; the other, called Brythons, gave the 
name Britain to the larger island, and the descendants 
of that branch are the Welsh, or Kymry (also spelled 
Cymry), as they are named in their own tongue. 

Of Britain after the Celts were settled in it the Greeks 



55 B.C.] UNTIL THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 5 

got some knowledge as early as the fourth century before 
Christ. At least one Greek explorer, Pytheas by name, 
made a voyage to its coasts in the time of Alexander the 
Great. Formerly it was thought that the Phoenicians 
and Carthaginians had traded with the islands before 
that time, obtaining tin from the mines in Cornwall, but 
there is no good evidence of the fact. Doubtless tin was 
obtained from Britain very early by the trading nations of 
the Mediterranean, but it reached them through Early tin 
the hands of the Gauls more probably than by trade - 
their own ships. That metal was nearly the most impor- 
tant article of trade in ancient times, because of its use 
in hardening copper, to produce the bronze or brass 
which then took the place of iron and steel. 

Whatever earlier knowledge of Britain the Romans 
may have had, their real acquaintance with it began in 
the year 55 b. c, when Julius Caesar, then en- Caesar's 
gaged as a Roman commander in the conquest mvasi0n - 
of Gaul, crossed the Channel with two legions of his sol- 
diers (8,000 or 10,000 men), and entered the island. He 
may have intended no more than to warn the Britons 
against aiding their kindred in Gaul, for he hardly moved 
from his landing-place, and he left the island in three 
weeks. But the next year he repeated the invasion with 
five legions instead of two, and then advanced beyond 
the Thames, defeating the Britons in several battles, tak- 
ing an important stronghold, and receiving the submis- 
sion of a number of tribes. He left no troops in the 
country when he withdrew, and established no real author- 
ity ; but Roman influence was felt from that time among 
the Britons nearest to Gaul, and Roman arts and manners 
were gradually introduced. 

Accounts given by Caesar and other writers show the 
Britons in the interior of the island to have risen in that 



6 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [55B.C, 

age little above the savage state. They lived chiefly on 
flesh and milk, and clothed themselves with skins. On 
the eastern and southern coast the tribes were more 
advanced, but were considerably behind the better part 
of the Gauls. They were rich in cattle, and they cul- 
tivated barley and wheat. They had no towns, living 
Barbaric ordinarily in villages of huts, built in the bee- 
Me. h} ve f orm) probably much like the wigwams of 

American Indian tribes. We may judge that their state 
of civilization was scarcely higher than that of the Iro- 
quois of America when white men first knew the latter 
people. Like the American aborigines, they painted 
themselves, using the blue stain of a plant called woad. 

4. The Druids. Caesar described a remarkable priest- 
hood, the Druids, who possessed great influence ancf 
power among the Gauls. Most writers on the subject, 
until lately, have assumed that the religion represented 
by the Druids was one common to all the Celtic inhabitants 
of Britain and Gaul. But recent studies have tended to 
the conclusion that Druidism had its origin among the 
people who preceded the Celts ; that probably the Gaelic 
Celts adopted it, and adapted it to their own mythology, 
but that there is no evidence of its existence among the 
Brythonic tribes. 

According to these newer opinions, the original Druids 
were like the "medicine-men," the soothsayers and magi- 
cians, of other savage or barbarous races, both ancient 
and modern. They practised, no doubt, on the supersti- 
tious fears of their Celtic conquerors, and finally got a 
standing among them in a priestly character, as ministers 
of the gods. At last, in Gaul, they obtained some smat- 
tering of Greek ideas and learning, and rose to the rank 
of teachers and philosophers, becoming a haughty and 
tyrannical sacred order or caste, more powerful than the 



A..D.43] UNTIL THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 7 

chiefs. The Romans dreaded their influence, and de- 
stroyed them so relentlessly that nothing of 

. , • i i -n Extinction 

their order or system survived the Roman con- of the 
quest of Britain and Gaul. That certain strange 
ruins found in England — most notably the famous Stone- 
henge on Salisbury Plain — are remains of rude temples 




STONEHENGE. 



that were built for Druidic rites, is a common belief, not 
improbable, but resting on no certain ground. 

5. Roman Britain. It was not until nearly a century 
after Caesar that the Roman conquest of Britain was be- 
gun (a. d. 43). It was a conquest never finished, for the 
savage tribes in the northern part of the island, beyond 
the Forth and the Clyde, had retreats in their mountains 
which the Romans could not reach. 1 Attempts to over- 
come them were given up at last, and great walls were 

1 The Romans called these northern tribes Picts, meaning painted 
people, because they painted their faces when they went to war, as 
the subjugated Britons had formerly done, and as wild tribes of 
American Indians are doing to this day. 



8 



BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [A. D. 43 



Roman 
walls. 



Roman 
relics. 



built, from the Sol way to the Tyne and from the Forth 
to the Clyde, to shut them out. Ireland was 
never reached by the Roman arms. 
Britain south of the walls was occupied and ruled by 
the Romans for about three centuries and a half. In that 
long period there is strangely little known of its history, 
except in what relates to the fighting by which it was 
subdued and then defended against the northern tribes. 
Vestiges of Roman roads and Roman camps, fragments 
of Roman city walls, buried foundations of the city homes 
and country villas of wealthy Roman citizens, 
broken remains of Roman handicraft and art, 
are found in all parts of the country, to show that it was 
once covered with the works and surfaced, at least, with 

the civilization of 
the all-conquer- 
ing race of Rome. 
But how numer- 
ously the Romans 
were settled in 
Britain, not as sol- 
diers or officials, 
but in the occu- 
pations of private 
life, and in what 
relations the con- 
querors and the 
conquered dwelt 
together, with 
what results to 
the latter, — these 
are things, for the 
most part, that can 
only be guessed 




ROMAN BRITAIN. 



3 d Cent.] UNTIL THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 9 

from scanty signs. It is probable that large numbers of 
the native Britons were drafted into the Roman armies, 
for service in other parts of the great empire, and that 
most of those remaining sank into the condition of slaves. 
The Romans were everywhere great builders of cities, 
and there is evidence that they built many in Britain 
which were populous and quite splendidly adorned. Their 




REMAINS OF A ROMAN BATH, AT BATH. 

Londinium, the London of our day, though not the polit- 
ical capital of the province, was the chief centre of its 
trade. The seat of their military administration was Ebo- 
racum, now York. Lindum (modern Lincoln), Camulo- 
dunum (Colchester), Durovernum (Canterbury), Roman 
Durobrivae (Rochester), Venta (Winchester), cities - 
Caleva (Silchester), Isca (Exeter), Glevum (Gloucester), 
Aquae Sulis (Bath), Deva (Chester), were all important 
towns. Chester takes its English name from the Latin 
castrum (camp) of the Roman legion once stationed there; 



IO 



BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. 



[43-407 



and the many town-names in England which end in 
"Chester," or "cester," or "caster," or " caer," are sup- 
posed to be derived from similar camps. Yet, of all the 
Roman cities built in Britain, the remains now existing, 
in fragments of walls and buried foundations, are very 
slight. Even the sites of some that are known to have 
been important cannot be found. 

The most lasting work of the Romans in Britain was 




REMNANT OF ROMAN MILITARY ROAD CALLED WATLING STREET. 

The ruts seen are worn in the stone foundation. 



Roman 
roads. 



the construction of roads. They left many in the island 
which served the later inhabitants for centuries, 
and which furnished foundations for some of 
the best now in use. A long highway, from the Chan- 
nel, through London, to Chester, which the English, in 
after-times, named Watling Street ; another, called Ick- 
nield Street, which ran from Norfolk to Cornwall ; a 



4 o7] UNTIL THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. II 

third, Eormine Street, connecting London with Lincoln 
and York ; and a fourth, known as the Fosse Way, which 
traversed the island from Devonshire to Lincoln, — were 
the most important of the Roman roads. 

Through the Romans, Christianity was brought into 
Britain at some early day ; but little is known christian- 
of the churches established in their time, nor lty- 
how far the native Britons accepted the faith. 

6. The Fall of the Roman Empire. On the con- 
tinent, in western Europe, the northern and eastern 
boundary of Roman conquest was the river Rhine. At- 
tempts to subdue the German tribes beyond it were early 
given up, and the Romans had reason very soon to be 
satisfied if they could defend a fortified frontier, which 
ran by the Rhine, the Danube, and the Dniester, from 
the North Sea to the Black Sea. They held it until 
nearly the middle of the third century of the Christian 
era, and then serious breakings of the barrier began. 
These ended, soon after the opening of the German 
fifth century, in an avalanche of invasion, by invasion - 
great confederacies of barbarous and semi-barbarous 
German tribes, the most formidable of which were known 
as Franks and Goths. The whole empire of Rome in 
western Europe was overwhelmed ; but a considerable 
empire in the east, with its capital at Constantinople, 
still kept the Roman name. 

Roman authority in Britain must have practically come 
to an end in the year 407, when the last legions of Roman 
soldiery in the island, already left to themselves, chose 
an emperor from their own ranks and followed him to 
Gaul. After that, for forty years, the Britons and the 
Roman residents left in Britain fought a losing fight 
with invading Picts from the north, with Scots from 
Ireland (who, by settlement in Scotland, gave their name 



12 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [446 

to that country in the end), and with piratical Saxons 
from the German coast. In 446 they were at the end 
Roman 0I their strength, and, according to a later 
me a nt d o°f n ' chronicle, they cried despairingly to one of the 
Britain. i as t; f fo e Roman generals for help. " The 
savages," they said, "drive us to the sea, and the sea 
casts us back upon the savages." It was a vain cry, 
and the last. The Britain of the Celt and the Roman 
was about to disappear, transformed by a destructive 
conquest into the England of the modern world. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

1. The Island of Great Britain. 
Topics. 

1. Influences affecting England's history. 

a. Climate. 

b. Harbors and rivers. 

c. Resources. 

d. Separation from continent. 

2. Effect of these influences upon her political development. 
Reference. — Cunningham and McArthur, ch. ii. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What portion of eastern North 

America has the same latitude as England? (2.) Compare the 
climate of the two and give the reasons for the difference. 
(3.) Compare the rainfall of England with that of the United 
States. (4.) What is the cause of the difference ? (5.) What 
sort of coast-line assists the interchange of ideas and products 
between nations, and hence promotes civilization ? (6.) Compare 
Europe in this respect with Asia; with Africa; England with 
Russia. (7.) How do navigable rivers add to the wealth of a 
nation ? (8.) Name some of the good harbors and navigable 
rivers with which England abounds. (9.) What are the chief 
mineral resources of the British Isles ? (10.) What bodies of 
water separate England from the continent of Europe? (11.) 
What is the shortest distance across? (12.) What reputation at 
the present clay has the passage from England to the Continent? 
(13.) What must have been true about it before the use of steam- 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 13 

boats or large sailing craft? (14.) Show how this would be a 
protection against invasion, but would offer little hindrance to 
peaceful intercourse. (15.) What traits does an insular posi- 
tion tend to develop in a people? (16.) Might it tend also to 
strengthen despotic notions in government? (17.) What safe- 
guard from this in Britain's proximity to the continent? 

2. The Prehistoric Inhabitants of Britain. 

Topics. 

1. Traces of early inhabitants. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 1-6; Guest, ch. i. ; Traill, i. 1; Rip- 
ley's Races of Europe, ch. xi. ; Freeman, O. E. H., ch. i. 6-8. 

3. Celtic Britain. 
Topics. 

1. Early Celtic inhabitants. 

a. Gaels — their home and descendants. 

b. Brythons — their home and descendants. 

2. Early explorers. 

3. Early tin trade. 

4. Caesar's invasion. 

5. Barbaric life found by Caesar. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 6-1 1. Celts in Britain: Colby, 1-6; 
Traill, i. 1-7, 70, 86, 98-114. Caesar's Gallic War, book iv. chs. 
20-27, book v. chs. 1-22 ; Guest, ch. iii. ; Pearson, i. chs. i. and 
v. ; Rhys, Celtic Britain. 

Research Questions. — (1.) How is it shown that tribes are 
sprung from the same race ? (2.) Name the province of France 
which has inhabitants like the ancient people of Britain. (3.) 
Show from the map how this was likely to be so. (4.) Quote 
from his Gallic War Caesar's opinion of these people. (5.) What 
difficulty did he find in invading Britain? (6.)' State what you 
think to be the advantages of an insular position in respect to 
ease of invasion. (7.) Compare Britain in this respect with 
France, with Germany, with Spain. (8.) Point out what portion 
of Britain would be seized first by every invader, and tell why 
you think so. (9.) What parts would serve as a refuge from 
invaders ? (10.) How do navigable rivers assist invaders ? (1 1.) 
What three dialects of the Celtic tongue are still spoken in the 
British Isles ? (12.) Can a Londoner understand them ? 



14 UNTIL THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 

4. The Druids. 
Topics. 

i. The Celtic religion. 

2. Its priesthood. 

3. Extinction of the Druids. 

References. — Guest, 21,22; Gardiner, i. 10; Traill, i. 33-36 ; 
Pearson, i. 12, 17-21 ; Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

5. Roman Britain. 
Topics. 

1. Extent of the Roman conquest. 

2. Roman walls. 

3. Evidences of Roman civilization. 

4. Probable fate of the Britons. 

5. Roman cities. 

6. Roman roads. 

7. Christianity. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 12-23. Romans Ln Britain: Gar- 
diner, i. 19-23, 24-25 ; Traill, i. 14-23 ; Pearson, i. chs. ii. and 
iii. ; Rhys, ch. iii. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Who was the most famous of the 
Roman emperors ? (2.) How long before the Roman occupa- 
tion of Britain did he live? (3.) Give a description of Rome 
under Augustus in respect to its buildings, streets, and public 
works in general. (4.) Show from this the benefits which would 
accrue to the ancient Britons from the Roman conquest. (5.) 
Did the Romans bring in vices as well ? (6.) What is the effect 
of superimposing a higher civilization upon a lower ? Illustrate 
this from the case of the English and Spanish settlers in Amer- 
ica and the Indians. (7.) Did Britain ever achieve enough luxury 
to reconcile a Roman emperor to living there ? (Guest, 35.) 
(8.) Locate on the map the Roman walls. (9.) By means of their 
great settlements, trace the extent of the Roman occupation. 

6. The Fall of the Roman Empire. 
Topics. 

1. Northern boundary of the Roman Empire. 

2. German invasion. 

3. Roman abandonment of Britain. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 23-26; Church's Beginnings of the 
Middle Ages, Introd. and ch. i. ; Pearson, i. ch. iv. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ENGLISH CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT. 

7. The Conquest. If tradition be trustworthy, the 
German freebooters got their first footing in the island 
as allies of the despairing Britons, who turned to them 
as the least dreaded of their enemies and hired them to 
fight against the Picts. But the meagre story that is 
gleaned from a precious old Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and 
from an ancient British history, 1 both written long after 
the event, is neither certain nor clear. 

" Men from three tribes in Germany " are mentioned in 
the Chronicle as having shared the conquest of Britain 
between them. Those three tribes were the Engles, the 
Saxons, and the Jutes, all coming from the region between 
the Baltic and the North Sea, now comprised in the 
kingdom of Denmark and the northwestern 
states of the German Empire. The probability Saxons', 
seems to be that other tribes, from all the 
coast between the Elbe and the Rhine, and especially 
the Frisians of modern Holland, took part in the attack ; 
but they are not named. 

Jutland, in northern Denmark, and the small district 
of Angeln, at the south of it, in Schleswig, still 
bear the names of the Jutes and the Engles, ginaiEng- 
to mark the old homes from which they went 
forth to the conquest of new ones. Immediately south 

1 De Excidio Britannia", written by Gildas, a Welsh monk of 
the sixth century, whose later life was in Brittany, where he founded 
a monastery. 



i6 



BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [ 5 th Cent. 



of them, in modern Hanover, on the Elbe, was the dis- 
trict from which the Saxons went. Between Jutes, 
Engles, Saxons, and Frisians, who spoke the same lan- 
guage in dialects slightly different, the kinship was close. 
They were the northern sea-kings of that age, fore- 
runners of the Northmen of a later period, about whom 




THE OLDER HOME OF THE ENGLISH RACE. 



we shall have something to learn. At Flensborg, Schles- 
wig-Holstein, in the Museum of Northern Antiquities, a 
boat is shown that undoubtedly represents the " long 
ships " in which their bold voyages to Britain were made. 
It was found some years ago, buried in a peat- 
"lcmg bog at Nydam, South Jutland, so perfectly pre- 

served that the parts could be put together 
and the form and entire construction restored. It is 
seventy-seven feet long and nearly eleven feet broad. 
Its planks of oak were fastened together with iron nails, 
but bound to the oaken ribs with ropes ; the seams were 
calked with a woolen stuff and smeared with pitch. It 



449-477] 



ENGLISH CONQUEST. 



17 



is a well-shaped ship, having rowlocks for twenty-eight 
oars, but no masts. 

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the first of 
the sea-kings who seized and occupied a district in 
Britain were two brothers, Hengist and Horsa, leaders 
of a band of Jutes, who landed at Ebbsfleet in Thanet, 
in 449. Between that year and 473, Hengist (Horsa 
having fallen in battle) mastered the greater part of 
Kent and became a king. In 477 a war-party of Saxons, 
under a chieftain named Elle, and his three Leaders of 
sons, began the conquest of a " South Saxon " tonicinva- 
kingdom which touched that of Kent on the S10n - 
south. It seems to have been a rich and populous dis- 
trict, and they were fourteen years in making the con- 
quest. Soon afterwards another Saxon host, commanded 




ANCIENT JUTISH BOAT. 



by Cerdic and his son Cynric, started upon a career 
of destructive conquest that went on for many years, 
until it resulted in a "West Saxon" kingdom, which 
stretched from the domain of the South Saxons to the 
Severn River and spread north of the Thames. Mean- 
time, two other Saxon parties, " East Saxon " and " Mid 



l8 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [6th Cent. 

die Saxon," had established themselves on the northern 
bank of the lower Thames. 1 

The conquests of the Engles in Britain were more 
extensive than those of the Saxons and Jutes combined ; 
but there is no account to tell us when or where their 
landings were made. They are said to have wholly 
deserted their Schleswig home, transplanting themselves 
as a nation, in such numbers that the greater part of 
Britain took their name. 2 First and last, the Engles 
took possession of the whole eastern part of the island, 
from the Stour to the Forth, penetrating far 
mentsof inland through the valleys of the Humber, the 
tonic Trent, the Tees, the Tyne, and the Tweed. 

i 11 v £i d 6 i*s 

Norfolk and Suffolk represent in their names 
the North Folk and South Folk into which the kingdom 
of East Anglia was divided. Between the Humber and 
the Forth, on the eastern coast, the Engles founded two 
kingdoms, Deira and Bernicia, which were at war until 
Deira was conquered, and a greater kingdom of North- 
umbria then took the place of both. On the upper waters 
of the Trent still another kingdom was formed, which bore 
the name of Mercia, because it occupied the "march "or 
border of the country into which the unconquered Brit- 
ons had been driven. 

1 The South Saxon kingdom is represented by the modern Eng- 
lish county of Sussex, that of the East Saxons by the county of 
Essex, and that of the Middle Saxons by Middlesex. The modern 
names, it will be seen, are merely clipped pronunciations of the 
original " South Saxon," " East Saxon," and " Middle Saxon." In 
like manner, the West Saxon kingdom came to be called Wessex, 
and its region, which covers several counties, is often referred to 
by that name ; as by Thomas Hardy in his novels. 

2 After a few generations the Saxons and Jutes accepted the 
name of Englishmen, and all that part of Britain which the German 
invaders occupied was known as Engla-land. 



6th Cent.] 



ENGLISH CONQUEST. 



I 9 



Before the end 
of the sixth cen- 
tury, the Engles 
were in posses- 
sion of southeast- 
ern Scotland (as 
we name it now) 
and eastern and 
middle England ; 
the Jutes were 
in Kent and the 
Isle of Wight ; 
the Saxons held 
the remainder of 
southern England 
as far westward 
as to Devonshire 
and Wales. The 
surviving and un- 
conquered Brit- 
ons were still 
holding Cornwall, 
Devonshire, part 
of Somerset, and 
Wales, besides a 
strip of western 
coast from the 

Dee to the Clyde, called Cumbria sometimes, and some- 
times Stratbclyde ; and the Picts and Scots were in the 
highlands of the farther north. 

8. The Extinction of Christianity and of Roman 
Civilization. The Engles, Jutes, and Saxons were not 
savages when they subjugated Britain, but they were 
barbarians and pagans ; they were farther from civiliza- 




BRITAIN, A. D. 597. 



20 



BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [6th Cent. 



Teutonic gods. 



tion than most of the Teutonic tribes which overran 
other parts of the Roman Empire in that same dread- 
ful age, because they had lived in a corner of Europe 
remote from the influence of Rome. Christianity had 
not reached them, and they still worshipped the old 
The Roman civilization and the Chris- 
tianity that they found in 
Britain had no meaning 
to them, no interest, no 
charm, and they seem to 
have destroyed both with 
a ruthless violence that 
was not shown in the 
conquest of Italy or Gaul. 
There are different opin- 
ions among historians on 
this point ; but those of 
weightiest authority (re- 
presented by such writers 
as Freeman and Green) 
find reason to believe that 
the English conquerors of 
Britain spared little. So 
far as they had mastered 
the island when the sixth 
century closed, cities and country mansions had prob- 
ably gone down in fiery ruin ; churches and priests had 
disappeared, and the old inhabitants (if this view is cor- 
rect) had been driven out or enslaved or slain. Those 
driven out either fled across the Channel to their kin- 
dred of Brittany in Gaul, or retreated into the moun- 
tains and behind the moorland wastes of western Britain, 
where the invaders called them Wealh or Welsh, a term 
of contempt, which the Germans applied to foreigners 




EARLY ENGLISH SPEARS AND 
KNIVES. 



6th Cent.] ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 21 

in general, and which has given its lasting name to 
Wales. 1 

9. The Primitive Form of English Society. It is 

not to be supposed that the German tribes which entered 
England were too barbarous for a settled life. They 
were sea-rovers and warriors, but they had likewise be- 
come cultivators of the soil, and had learned many of the 
simpler arts of peaceful life. Their wives and children, 
flocks and herds, probably came with them or followed 
them, in most instances, to their new homes. They are 
supposed to have come in many bands, large and small, 
at different times, and usually to have made settlements 
of kindred families together. 

They had always been a free people in the political 
sense of the term ; that is to say, all recognized mem- 
bers of the community — its " freemen " — had a voice in 
public affairs. But they held slaves (theozvs), who had 
no rights. For the most part, probably, these were cap- 
tives taken in war. In time there came to be other 
classes of servants and dependents, who were 
not slaves, but who were "unfree" in various ceoris, and 
degrees, and who did not enjoy the freemen's 
rights ; but the great body of the original English set- 
tlers were probably landowners and freemen, each hav- 
ing a voice in the affairs of the whole. At the beginning 
there were two classes among them, the ceoris, or com- 

1 From incidents connected with some period in the long strug- 
gle of the British against the English there grew the British legends 
that came to be gathered about the name of King Arthur. That 
an Arthur existed in reality, or that any single hero of British tra- 
dition is represented by any character among his Knights of the 
Round Table, is doubtful ; and whether the scenery of the great 
Celtic romance is to be looked for on the borders of Wales, or far 
north, in and around the old British kingdom of Strathclyde, is 
likewise a question very much in dispute. 



22 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [6th Cent. 

mon freemen, and the eorls, or nobles ; but the introduc- 
tion of royalty and its surroundings 'produced different 
gradations of rank. 

Royalty was a new institution to these tribes. In 
their older home they had had no kings. The chiefs 
(plain elders, or ealdormen, before) who led them to 
their conquests in Britain were raised to regal dignity ; 
but the kingship was elective from the beginning. 
Though "the kings were all chosen from heroic 
families, supposed to be descended from the 
gods, and though son was expected to succeed father, it 
was only so by popular consent ; and that principle has 
controlled the succession to the English throne down to 
the present day. The monarchy is hereditary ; but the 
nation, through its Parliament, has never lost its right of 
selection among the heirs. 

10. The Seed-Planting of Free Institutions. The 
political organization of the early English seems to have 
had for its base or starting-point a quite democratic and 
locally independent townsJiip, taking its name from the 
"tun" or defensive inclosure of the village settlement. 
The townships were formed into groups called Hundreds 
in some parts of England, and Wapentakes in other 
parts ; 1 and these were finally grouped in larger govern- 
mental districts called SJiires, to which the 
hundreds, ' counties of modern England correspond. In 
all those divisions, from the township to the 
shire, justice was administered and public affairs were 
regulated by the "gemot" or "moot" — that is, the 
meeting — of the freemen or their chosen representa- 

1 The name Wapentake is supposed to have signified the taking 
up of weapons (arms), and to have been applied originally to a 
military division or district ; while the Hundred probably indicated, 
in the first instance, a district occupied by a hundred warriors. 



6th Cent.] ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 23 

tives. The tun-moot of the township may be looked 
upon as the parent of the town-meeting of New Eng- 
land and of other parts of the United States. 

From the tun-moot, four "best men" were chosen to 
attend, with its "gerefa" (reeve, or headman), the hun- 
dred-moot and the great "folk-moot" of the shire.; and 
this was the beginning of the development in England 
of the grand political device of representative govern- 
ment. The English may have brought the idea of pop- 
ular representation from Germany, but they 
alone among the German people nurtured it 
and kept it alive. For many centuries the local moots 
kept their importance in the English judicial system, and 
were schools in which the people learned practices of 
election and representation that made them familiar with 
the idea, and led them on to its larger uses. 

For war, the whole body of free landholders was an 
always armed host, — a national militia, called the 
" Fyrd," — which was subject to the call of the king. 

11. Losses in Freedom. Much of the independence 
and equality that seem to have prevailed at first among 
the English freemen was unfortunately lost in time. 
From one cause and another, it ceased to be the general 
fact that they owned land. A class of "land-less " men, 
on one hand, and a class of "land-lords," owning large 
estates, on the other, came into existence. The landless 
man became a hireling, or else a tenant of land owned by 
another, for the use of which he either paid rent or per- 
formed labor of some kind. In either case he was looked 
upon as having lost personal responsibility, and was re- 
quired at length to put himself in dependence on some 
lord, 1 who undertook to be answerable for him to the 

1 The word " lord," in its Anglo-Saxon form, was hlaford, sup- 
posed to have signified originally loaf-giver. 



24 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [6th Cent. 

courts, and who, of course, exacted service and deference 
in return. 

Other causes helped to produce a state of things nut 
of which (according to the view here given) there came, 
in time, a class of townships very different from those 
described above, their population being made up of ten- 
ants and other dependents, more or less subservient to 
a superior, or lord. At a later time such de- 
pendent townships were known as "manors," 
and questions relating to them have been the subject of 
much study and discussion in recent years. 1 

Even to the present day, something of popular local 

government has lived on in the old manorial townships, 

surviving especially in the parish vestry-meet- 

Localself- . . . . L , , J . L J 

govern- mgs, which took the place, to a great extent, of 
the township-moots. This came from a gradual 
confusion of townships with parishes, since their boun- 
daries were made, generally, to coincide, when church 
parishes were formed. 2 

12. The Growth of an Aristocracy. As stated be- 
fore, the creation of monarchies gave rise to different 
orders of nobility, with gradations of rank. Sons and 
brothers of the king rose to a rank above other nobles, 
and the title of "atheling," or " etheling," which had 
been common to all the noble class of eorls, came to be 
restricted to princes of the royal blood. The counsellors 
and personal followers of the king — his "gesiths " and 
" thanes," as they were called (the thane seeming to be 

1 Some account of the old English " manor" will be found below 
in section 30. 

2 In the United States, the term "parish " is often applied to the 
membership or congregation of a church. In England, it is a 
church district, geographically defined; and so it is in some Amer- 
ican states. In most states, the Protestant Episcopal church is 
organized in parishes which are geographically defined. 



6th Cent.] 



ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 



25 



"primarily the warrior-gesith ") — acquired distinctions 
of rank. 

They acquired lordships in land, too, as rewards for 
their service to royalty, and such land-grants often car- 
ried with them certain rights of magistracy, called " sac 
and soc," more or less interfering with the hundred-moot. 




thane's house. 

The hall in the middle, the church on the right. The nobleman and his wife are dis- 
tributing alms to the poor. 

This created an aristocracy against whose power it be- 
came more and more difficult for the plain freemen to 
maintain their ancient rights. Even the free- Landhold . 
holder of land, as well as the landless man, be- ing - 
gan to find himself driven, for safety or for some other 
advantage, to place his person and property under the 
protection and patronage of a lord. That popular rights 
and a popular spirit in local government were never 
quite destroyed by these arbitrary tendencies is one of 
the most striking facts in English history. 



26 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [6th Cent. 

The distinctions between man and man produced by 
differences of rank were measured with great exactness 
by the price put on the life of each in his class. By the 
law of all the Germanic peoples, the taking of a man's 
life could be atoned for to his kindred by a payment of 
money, called "wergild," fixed according to his 

W Grjrild 

status in society. Not only the value of his 
life, but his whole weight and 'worth as a citizen, were 
determined by the wergild. In the courts, for example, 
the oath of a thane, whose wergild was 1200 shillings, 
was held to equal the oaths of six common freemen, 
whose wergild was only 200 shillings each. 

13. The Witenagemot. The gemot, or moot, of the 
whole kingdom was not a folk-moot, or popular body, 
made up, like those of the hundred and the shire, of 
elected representatives of the people. It was a Witena- 
gemot, or assembly of "the Wise," those designated as 
" the wise " being the greater officers of the government 
and the royal household, the king's chosen counsellors 
and friends. After the conversion of the English to 
Christianity, the bishops and abbots of the church were 
admitted to seats. Practically it was a body selected by 
the king, and it had almost nothing of the representative 
character or the powers of the English Parliament of 
later times. Yet it seems to have acted with consider- 
able independence, and to have frequently exercised no 
little control over the kings. 

14. Conversion of the English. While Christianity 
was extinguished by the English, during the first cen- 
tury and a half of their conquest, it lived on among the 
unconquered Britons of Wales. In Ireland, too, at the 
same time, it was having a wonderful growth, from seed 
planted in the fifth century by St. Patrick, who returned 
to the island as a Christian missionary after having 



6th Cent.] 



ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 



27 



escaped from captivity in it as a slave. An Irish church, 
burning with devotion and zeal, had grown up, separated 
from the Christian church in other parts of western 
Europe, and differin*^r0it^'it in many respects. Its 
monasteries wefe becoming the most famous schools of 
that dark age ; its missionaries were the most ardent 
in the field. They were in Scottish Britain before the 
sixth century closed, and the pagan English were soon 
to receive the gospel from their lips. 

But missionaries from Rome were the first on English 
ground. Ejiej^bodyhas read 
the interesting story, told by 
the Venerable Bede, of St. 
Gregory, the good priest, who 
saw some fair-haired English 
boys, captives of the cruel war 
between Deira and Bernicia, 
being sold in the slave market 
at Rome. English faces were 
probably new there, though 
the slave-selling was a common 
sight. He was told that they 
came from the pagan island- 
ers of Britain, and were called 
Angles. "Right," NonAngli( 
said he, "for they sedAngeii. 
have angel faces, and should 
be co-heirs with the angels 
in heaven." When he learned 

that their country was named Deira, he cried, " Truly 
are they de ira, withdrawn from wrath and called to the 
mercy of Christ." When the name of their king, Ella, 
was told him, he exclaimed again, " Halleluja, the praise 
of God must be sung in those parts ! " Gregory spoke 







SAXON CROSS AT RUTHWELL, 
ABOUT 680 A. D. 



28 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [597-627 

in the Latin language, and thus he made a happy play 
upon the names. 

Some years afterwards, St. Gregory became bishop 
or pope of Rome, and then, in the year 597, he sent a 
company of monks, under one Augustine, to win Eng- 
land to the Christian faith. They entered Kent, whose 
king, Ethelbert, had married a Christian princess, Ber- 
tha, from Gaul, and there they were so favor- 
ably listened to that the king and a great num- 
ber of the people were soon baptized. Augustine was 
made Archbishop of Canterbury (the capital of Kent), 
and his successors in that see, to this day, have had 
the primacy, or honorary precedence, in the English 
church. 

Ethelbert had acquired such power that he seems to 

have been recognized by the other kings south of the 

H umber as an overlord, having some kind of rank above 

them, and bearing the title of Bretwalda, the 

Augustine . .. , . , . TT . 

and precise meaning 01 which is not known. His 

influence brought about an acceptance of Chris- 
tianity by the East Anglians and the East Saxons, and 
the marriage of his sister to Edwin, king of Northum- 
bria, led to its introduction into that kingdom. 

When King Edwin proposed to the thanes of his 
Witenagemot that they should listen to the Christian 
missionaries, Bede tells us that one of them said : " Truly 
the life of a man in this world, compared with that life 
whereof we wot not, is on this wise. It is as when thou, 
O king, art sitting at supper with thine ealdor- 
thane's men and thy thanes in the time of winter, when 
the hearth is lighted in the midst and the hall 
is warm, but without the rains and the snow are falling 
and the winds are howling ; then cometh a sparrow and 
flyeth through the house ; she cometh in by one door 



627-6S6] ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 29 

and goeth out by another. ... So it is with the life 
of man ; it is but for a moment ; what goeth before it 
and what cometh after it, wot we not at all. Wherefore 
if these strangers can tell us aught, that we may know 
whence man cometh and whither he goeth, let us hearken 
to them and follow their law." 1 In this little speech 
there is a charming touch of simple poetry, which often 
showed itself in the nature of the rude Englishmen of 
that olden time. 

But a great reaction against the Christians had already 
occurred in the south, and soon followed in the north. 
Edwin lost his life in battle with the Mercians and the 
Welsh (633), and Christianity seemed to be perishing 
again in all the kingdoms except Kent. Then it was 
that Irish missionaries came to the rescue of the faith. 
A prince named Oswald, who had spent his youth in ex- 
ile, and who had received Christian teaching at a famous 
Irish monastery on the island of Hy or Iona, Irish mis . 
was raised to the Northumbrian throne, and S10naries - 
missionaries from Iona came at his call, led by one 
Aidan, of saintly 
fame. Their zeal 
triumphed every- 
where ; monas- 
teries were thickly 
planted, and the re- 
ligion Of the CrOSS REMAINS OF ANCIENT CELTIC CHURCH. 2 

was established 

throughout the English north. Presently, the arms of 
Oswald and his son Oswy opened Mercia and Wessex to 
mission labors, which obtained success ; East Anglia 
accepted the faith anew, and all England had nominally, 

1 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book ii. ch. xiii. 

2 On the island of Eilean-na-Naoimh, near Iona. 




30 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [7th-Sth Cent. 

but not actually, abandoned its heathen gods before the 
seventh century closed. 

15. Christian Culture. — Early Literature. The 
civilizing influence of the Christian church, in its early 
working, was shown nowhere more quickly or more 
strikingly than among the English of the north. It 
made no sudden change in the character of the people 
at large, but it drew out of the common mass many fine 
and pure natures, to give them a cultivation in intellect 
and spirit, and to make them mouthpieces and examples 
of that which was nobler than feasting and war. Thus 
great and peculiar forces were brought to bear on the 
development in English genius of what is highest and 
best. 

The surpassing product of English genius has been 
in literature, and the Engles appear to have been the 
part of the original English race in which the germ of it 
was fruitful first. They had brought with them from 
their primitive home a store of unwritten song, more of 
which has been saved for us, by the loving labor of Eng- 
lish monks, than we get in any other European country 
Early Eng- from so early a time. " Widsith," The Song of 
nsh poems. ^ Traveller, which tells of a minstrel's wan- 
derings in the age of the wars of the Goths ; " Beowulf," 
the most ancient of epics from any Germanic source ; 
"The Fight at Finnesburg," which celebrates afresh one 
of the incidents of " Beowulf ; " and the fragment of 
"Waldhere," which embalms a memory of Attila's time, 
— may represent very little of the store out of which 
the oldest English gleemen drew the songs that they 
sang in the halls of the thanes, but they are enough to 
give us glimpses of the quality of mind in those early 
ancestors of ours. 

In northern England, these robust song-makers came 



7th-8th Cent.] ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 31 

into contact with Celtic peoples, more inventive and finer 
in poetic sensibility than themselves, but less vigorous in 
imagination and less bold in thought, who brought them 
the gospel of Christ, drew them into quiet monasteries, 
taught them letters, and showed them the beauty of a 
peaceful and pious life. All that was spiritual, poetical, 
and thoughtful in the Ehgles of the north re- The Celtic 
sponded quickly to the teaching of the first influence - 
Irish missionaries, and the monasticism then planted 
proved most favorable to the refining of the rude genius 
of that race. Poets, scholars, apostles, found their call- 
ing and their preparation in the religious communities 
that rose quickly in the Northumbrian field. Cuthbert, 
the most lovable of English saints ; Caedmon, who be- 
came the first of known English poets; Bede, — "the 
Venerable Bede," as he has always been reverently 
named ; Alcuin, friend, counsellor, and teacher of Charle- 
magne, — these are among the shining names they had 
placed on the roll of great Englishmen before the eighth 
century was closed. 

Caedmon was a herdsman of the seventh century, who 
served humbly at the monastery of the abbess Hilda, on 
the seashore at Whitby. Bede relates that he began to 
compose pious poems in obedience to a vision or dream. 
Excepting some verses quoted by Bede, nothing 

. - CsBdmon. 

was known of Caedmon s poetry until the sev- 
enteenth century, when an ancient Anglo-Saxon manu- 
script was found, part of which is believed by many 
scholars to be the herdsman-poet's work. It is a metri- 
cal paraphrase of parts of the Old Testament, and an- 
swers in a measure to the description given by Bede. 

The next and greatest of the known poets among the 
northern English was Cynewulf, who is thought to have 
lived in the eighth century, but who may belong to a 



32 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [ 7 th-8th Cent. 

later time. Four poems have been found which have 
n his name signed to them in runic letters, — 

Cynewulf. ° 

— that is, letters of the old Scandinavian alpha- 
bet, — and others are ascribed to him, all of them full of 
a poetical feeling that is remarkably spiritual and fine for 
so rude an age. 1 

Of plain prose-writing in the early English language 
there is nothing extant that belongs to any time before 
King Alfred the Great, unless it may be some entries in 
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the date of the writing of 
which, by successive monks, in different monasteries, is 
The vener- not known. Bede, — the Venerable Bede, — 
abieBede. f at h er of the learned literature of England, 
whose birth was in 673 and his death in 735, had just 
finished an English translation of the Gospel of St. 
John when he died, and had probably done other writing 
in his native tongue, but it is lost. Only a few of many 
books which he wrote in Latin have been spared ; but 
one of those, the " Ecclesiastical History of England," 
is priceless in its worth. 

The Saxons of the south of England appear to have 
contributed little to the earliest English literature, but 
Literature they evidently valued what came to them from 
south of Northumbria ; for nearly all of it that we 
England. now p 0Ssess was saved in their dialect when 
the northern monasteries were destroyed by the Danes, 
as will presently be told. One scholar and poet of the 
south, Aldhelm or Ealdhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, ob- 

1 Excepting Beoiuulf and Caedmon's verse, almost all that has 
been preserved of the earliest English poetry is in two ancient 
manuscript collections, — one known as The Exeter Book, found in 
the library of Exeter Cathedral, to which it was presented by a 
bishop Leofric in the eleventh century ; and the other found far 
away from England, in a monastery at Vercelli, Italy, and known 
as The Vercelli Book. 

I 



8 29 ] ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. 33 

tained fame in the seventh century, but nothing of his 
English verse has been preserved. 

16. Union of the English Kingdoms. Throughout 
the seventh and eighth centuries, the kings of Mercia, 
Wessex, and Northumberland struggled with each other 
for supremacy. The contest was practically ended about 
829, by a West Saxon king named Egbert, who joined 
Sussex, Essex, and Kent to his own kingdom, and was 
acknowledged as overlord by the under-kings Egber1; . s 
of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria, and kin & dom - 
by the British princes of Wales. The political union of 
the English, thus begun, was greatly helped by an or- 
ganization of the Christian church into one body, under 
the orderly rule of Rome, which Theodore of Tarsus, a 
Greek monk, made Archbishop of Canterbury in 669, 
succeeded in bringing about. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

7. The Conquest. 
Topics. 

1. Teutons as allies of the Britons. 

2. Home of the Engles, Saxons, and Jutes. 

3. A Jutish long ship. 

4. Conquests by each of the three tribes. 

5. Division of England among the invaders. 
References. — -Gardiner, i. 26-29. Origin of the English: Gar- 
diner, i. 24; Green, i. 1-5; Bright, i. 1; Taswell-Langmead, 1-8. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Discuss the right of the Anglo-Sax- 
ons to the lands they took, and illustrate from our own history. 
(2.) Compare the Anglo-Saxon with the Roman occupation of 
Britain. (3.) By the termination " ton," " ham," " stead," " wick," 
and "borough," point out Anglo-Saxon places. (4.) Where are 
Thanet and Ebbsfleet ? 

8. The Extinction of Christianity and of Roman 
Civilization. 
Topics. 

I. Social state of the new-comers. 



34 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT. 

2. Destruction they wrought in England. 

3. Derivation of " Wales." 

References. — Guest, ch. v. ; Freeman, Norman Conq., i. ch. ii. ; 
Pearson, i. ch. i. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What are the characteristics of a 
people in the savage stage ? (2.) In the barbarous stage? (3.) 
What is meant by their being pagan ? (4.) What was the reli- 
gion of the Teutons ? (5.) What names in every-day use have 
we from the names of their gods ? (Guest, 42, 43.) (6.) What 
religion did they find in England ? (7.) Brought there by whom ? 

9. The Primitive Form of English Society. 
Topics. 

1. Character of German tribes. 

2. Theows, ceorls, and eorls. 

3. Beginning of royalty. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 29-31. Trade, industry, social life 
and manners : Gardiner, i. 75-77 ; Bright, i. 28-39; Green, M. E., 
164-173 ; Pearson, i. ch. vii. ; Traill, i. 125-129, 201-228. Eng- 
lish in their old home: Gardiner, i. 29-34; Green, 1-5 ; Green, 
H. E. P., i. 8-16; Green, M. E., 166-174; Ransome, 2-4 ; Stubbs, 
C. H., i. ch. iii. ; H. Taylor, i. ch. ii. ; Tacitus' Agricola, book v., 
Germania. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What sort of life did the Teutons 
follow ? (2.) How well was England suited to their needs? (3.) 
What natural sources of wealth did they find ? (4.) Where did 
they get tin ? (5.) What other metal did they need to make 
bronze weapons ? 

10. The Seed-Planting of Free Institutions. 
Topics. 

1. Townships, hundreds, and shires. 

2. Tun-moot, hundred-moot, folk-moot. 

3. The Fyrd. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 31-33. English township: Green. 3, 
4; Gardiner, i. 31 ; Green, M. E., 166-174; Stubbs, C. H., i. 82- 
90; H. Taylor, i. 12; Taswell-Langmead, 16. Moots: Gardiner, 
i- 31-33, 45) 72-74, 113 ; Bright, i. 31-35 ; Stubbs, C. H., i. 102- 
108, 1 19-140; Taswell-Langmead, 30-42; H. Taylor, i. 12, 143- 
148; Ransome, 6-8: Traill, i. 136-138; Green, 60-61, 175-176. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What was the head man of a 
shire called ? (2.) What is the modern title derived from this ? 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 35 

(3.) Are the duties of this office the same to-day as then ? (4.) 
What is a moot-court of the present day ? (5.) What is a mooted 
question? (6.) Look up the " Chiltern Hundreds" and show of 
what Anglo-Saxon division they are a survival. (7.) Of what 
service are they to-day ? 

11. Losses in Freedom. 
Topics. 

1. Loss of land among freemen. 

2. Manors. 

3. Parish vestry-meetings of present day. 
Reference. — Montague, 19, 20. 

Research Questions. — (1.) In what particulars does land fur- 
nish the means of keeping a man independent ? (2.) To what 
two pursuits was land in those days devoted ? (3.) How impor- 
tant are those pursuits in any stage of society? (4.) If a man 
lost his land, what other means of livelihood had he? (5.) Why 
did this entail a loss of freedom ? (6.) Are men of the present 
day who are without land necessarily dependent ? (7.) What 
made the difference in the lot of landless men at that time ? 

12. The Growth of an Aristocracy. 
Topics. 

1. Early distinctions in rank, — atheling, gesiths, thanes. 

2. Changes in landholding. 

3. Measurement of rank. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 29-32. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What were the duties of the "ge- 
siths?" (Gardiner, i. 30.) (2.) What play of Shakespeare shows 
the character of " thanes " and how they acquired lands and 
titles or lost them ? (3.) Why was a thane more apt to be enriched 
than any other of the king's friends? (4.) What is meant by 
" sac and soc " ? (5.) What portion of the country did an earl 
rule in early days ? (6.) Is there a higher rank in the English 
nobility than earl now? (7.) If so, what is it and by whom was 
it introduced. (8.) Name as many of the titles of the English 
nobility as you can and describe the rank that pertains to each. 

13. The Witenagemot. 
Topics. 

1. Its make-up. 

2. Its function. 
Reference. — Ransome, 6-9. 



36 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT. 

Research Question. — The Witenagemot is the foreshadowing 
of what body in the English government of the present time ? 

14. Conversion of the English. 
Topics. 

i. Continued existence of Christianity. 

2. Pope Gregory and the Engles. 

3. Establishment and early spread of Christianity. 

4. The thane's parable. 

5. Reaction against Christianity. 

6. Irish missionaries. 

References. — Montague, 4, 5. Pope Gregory and Augustine: 
Green, 18, 19; Bede's Ecclesiastical History, book i. ch. xxiii. ; 
Colby, 14-16; Green, H. E. P., i. 36-42 ; Green, M. E., 212-218; 
Gardiner, i. 38-41 ; Guest, 53-59; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 438; 
Lappenberg, i. 171-180 ; Pearson, i. 298-302 ; Freeman, O. E. H., 
42-48. Conversion of King Edwin: Bede, E. H., book ii. chs. 
xiii. and xiv. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Describe the rise of Canterbury as 
a centre of the Christian religion and its growth into an arch- 
bishopric. (Gardiner, i. 38-40.) (2.) What was the famous Irish 
monastery whence missionaries came into England ? (Gardiner, 
i. 47.) (3.) Point out on the map the two directions from which 
Christianity entered England after the English conquest. 

15. Christian Culture. — Early Literature. 
Topics. 

1. Influence of the church in the north. 

2. Genius of the Engles for literature. 
3„ Poetry of the period. 

4. Celtic influence. 

5. Caedmon and Cynewulf. 

6. Prose writings. 

7. Literature in the south of England. 

References. — Early literature : Green, 25-29. Casdmon : Bede, 
E. H., book iv. ch. xxiv. ; Green, 27-29; Gardiner, i. 52 ; Green, 
H. E. P., i. 52; Green, M. E., 357-358; Pearson, i. 298-301; 
Freeman, O. E. H., 74. 

16. Union of the English Kingdoms. 
Topics. 

1. Supremacy of Egbert and the West Saxons. 

2. Influence of the church. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE INTRUSION OF THE DANES. 
787-1066. 

17. Appearance of the Vikings. Among the Eng- 
lish themselves, the supremacy that Egbert had won for 
the West Saxon kings was seriously disputed no more. 
But now there broke upon them a storm of foreign in- 
vasion which undid for a hundred years the work of 
consolidation that had been going on. 

A fresh outs warming of barbaric people from the 
Baltic regions of northern Europe had occurred. Once 
more the Danish peninsula was sending out fleets of pirat- 
ical rovers, and other fleets from Norway and Sweden fol- 
lowed in their wake. They called themselves "vikings," 
not as a regal title, but with reference to the " vicks," or 
creeks, from which they put to sea. The expeditions of 
the vikings were directed on two lines. One, westward, 
carried them to the Shetland and Orkney islands, to 
the Hebrides, to the western coast of Scotland and 
the eastern coast of Ireland ; or to the Faroe Islands, 
Iceland, Greenland, and finally to America, as is now 
well known. On the other line, southward, their expedi- 
tions struck England, and also ravaged the shores of the 
continent, from the Netherlands to Spain. 

Between the freebooters who sailed from Denmark 
and the Baltic islands and those who went from Raids of 
Norway or Sweden, little distinction was made theI)anes - 
in the chronicles of the time. To the Franks and 



3§ 



BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [7S7-S68 



other people on 
the continent they 
were generally 
known as North- 
men ; to the Eng- 
lish they were com- 
monly all Danes. 
It is supposed that 
the greater part of 
the vikings who 
ravaged and in- 
vaded England 
were Danes in fact, 
and we shall speak 
of them by that 
name. They were 
still "heathen 

men," as the Eng- 
lish called them, 
and the wealth 
of the Christian 
monasteries and 
churches, in Ire- 
land and England, made those sacred places the objects 
of their most constant attack. 

For three quarters of a century after the raids of the 
Danes began, they were kept from gaining any foothold 
on English soil. Egbert and his son Ethelwulf fought 

them off with success. Four sons of Ethelwulf 
Eclipse of 111.. , , 

christian succeeded him, in turn, on the throne, ana in 

the reign of Ethelred, the third of those val- 
iant brothers, the calamitous period of Danish invasion 
began. East Anglia and all the southern part of North- 
umbria were overwhelmed (866-868). Churches, mon- 




THE COURSE OE THE VIKING EXPEDITIONS. 



871-876] THE INTRUSION OF THE DANES. 



39 



asteries, schools, libraries disappeared ; the glorious light 
of learning and letters which had shone from the An- 
glian kingdom in the north went out, and utter darkness 
fell again upon the unfortunate land. 

18. Alfred the Great. In 871, Ethelred died from a 
wound received in battle with the Danes, and Alfred, the 
last of Ethel wulf's four sons, known to future times as 




IRON SWORDS OF THE VIKINGS, 



Alfred the Great, stepped into his place, and took up 
what seemed to be the hopeless task of England's de- 
fence. He was then but twenty-two years of age. He 
had been carefully educated, and had visited Rome in his 
youth. 

In the first year of his reign, Alfred was forced, by 
repeated defeats, to buy a truce from the Danes, which 
saved Wessex from their ravages for a considerable time. 
During that time they subjugated Mercia completely, 
overran Bernicia, Cumbria, and Strathclyde, and took a 
piece of territory from the Scots. Then, in S76, they 
returned to the attack on Wessex. Alfred, who had put 
a fleet of warships afloat, resisted them at sea and on 



40 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [876-878 

land ; but the forces against him were too strong. At 
the end of two years the Danes were nearly masters of 
the country. " Many of the people," says the Chroni- 
cle, "they drove beyond sea, and of the remainder the 
greater part they subdued and forced to obey them, except 
King Alfred ; and he, with a small band, with difficulty 
retreated to the woods and to the fastnesses of the 
moors." 

It was in Selwood Forest, on the edge of Somerset, 
that the young king took refuge, with his family and a 
few faithful men. He was hidden there through the 
early months of 878, not in idleness, we may be sure, 
but planning and preparing for new efforts to redeem the 
stricken land. Many tales of adventures that befel him 
in the forest were told in after times, among them that 

one of the king and the cakes in the herds- 
Aifredin » , • 1 , 

the herds- man s hut, which has been repeated many 

man's hut. . ...... ... A 

times, and which is quite possibly true. Ac- 
cording to the story, the king took shelter one day in 
the hut of a herdsman, whose wife knew him not. She, 
baking cakes at the fire by which he sat, bade him watch 
them and turn them, while she went to other tasks ; but 
his thoughts wandered, the cakes were burned, and he 
received a rough scolding for his neglect. 

When spring came, Alfred and his followers built a 
fortified camp on a small island of rising ground in the 
midst of a great marsh near Taunton. This was after- 
wards called "the atheling's eig," or island, but 

Athelney. , , . , , 

careless tongues corrupted the name to "Athel- 
ney," and so it remains. In the sheltered camp at Athel- 
ney, Alfred then began to bring together such forces as 
he could rally from the neighboring country, and to 
make forays upon the Danes. By the middle of May he 
was ready to lead an army against them, and in one 



S7S-901] THE INTRUSION OF THE DANES. 



41 



remarkable campaign he rescued his West Saxon king- 
dom. He routed the invaders at Ethandun, besieged 
them in their camp, forced them to surrender, extorted 
from them a solemn treaty, known as the Peace of Wed- 
more, and imposed Christian baptism on their chief. 

The tide was turned by this great success. Wessex 
was rescued immediately ; England was saved in the end. 
Half of it, by the terms of the treaty, was given up to the 
Danes, and thereafter known as the Danelaw TheDane . 
(under the law of the Danes) ; the other half law - 
was left in peace to grow strong and united, and to be 
able in time to rule the whole. The Danes withdrew 
from the entire re- 
gion south of the 
Thames and west 
of the old Watling 
Street road. This 
secured to Alfred a 
kingdom which com- 
prised the whole of 
Wessex, with Kent, 
Sussex, and the west- 
ern part of Mercia ; ,.| 
and eight years later 
he added what is now 
the county of Mid- 
dlesex, including the 
city of London, to 
his realm. 

The departing en- 
emy left ruin, poverty, and disorder behind. It was 
Alfred's task to clear the wreckage from his country ; 
to revive hope and confidence ; to restore authority to 
government and force to law ; to organize an effective 




ALFRED THE GREAT. 



42 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [878-901 

system of military and naval defence ; and, above all, to 
bring new and greater influences of religion and educa- 
Aifredas ^ion to bear on his people. All these things 
manlnd ne ca< ^' w * tn a w i s d° m > a faithfulness, and a 
teacher. power of example that have rarely been equalled 
in the world. In his own person he was the noblest 
teacher that any nation ever had. His great labors and 
cares of state did not keep him from hard studies, pur- 
sued for the sake of knowledge that he could give to his 
people. He toiled at translations from the Latin into 
the English tongue, so that they might read Bede's his- 
tory of their own land, and other instructive books. He 
gathered and preserved the materials of the precious old 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, from which we have been quot- 
ing, and it is thought that he wrote in it the annals of 
his own time. The noble stream of English prose litera- 
ture starts from Alfred's pen. 

That Alfred ranks above all other great Englishmen 
in public life is beyond dispute. Perhaps his place on 
the roll of fame is even higher than that. Professor 
Freeman, one of the foremost of historians, goes so far 
Alfred's as to sav : " Alfred ... is the most perfect 
greatness, character in history. ... No other man on re- 
cord has ever so thoroughly united all the virtues both 
of the ruler and of the private man. . . . The virtue of 
/Elfred, like the virtue of Washington, consisted in no 
marvellous displays of superhuman genius, but in the 
simple, straightforward discharge of the duty of the mo- 
ment. But Washington, soldier, statesman, and patriot, 
like yElfred, has no claim to yElfred' s two other charac- 
ters of saint and scholar." 1 This is a judgment which 
all may not accept, but none will find it easy to disprove. 

King Alfred's son, Edward (called " the Elder "), who 
1 Freeman's Norman Conquest, ch. ii. 




4 B Longitude West 2 of Greenwich C 



901-975] THE INTRUSION OF THE DANES. 43 

succeeded him in 901, and three valiant grandsons, who 
came after, were able, in the fifty-four years of their suc- 
cessive reigns, to accomplish the complete subjugation of 
the Danelaw, and to reestablish the sovereignty of their 
house over the whole English land. Under Edgar, a 
great-grandson of Alfred, the power of the West E d g ar's 
Saxon kings reached its height, and the nation reign - 
rejoiced in a singularly good government and in the 
blessings of peace. Edgar was ably served by a great 
minister, the monk Dunstan, who became Archbishop 
of Canterbury, and who revived Alfred's educational 
work. 

19. Effects of the Danish Struggle. England was 
little affected by anything which the Danes brought in ; 
since the two peoples were substantially of one blood, 
and their institutions, customs, character, and language 
were closely alike. But the framework of English society 
was seriously changed, we may be sure, by the long conflict 
which the Danish intrusion brought about. The constant 
exercise of military power, in so long a period of internal 
war, transformed it, inevitably, into political and social 
power. The warrior order of thanes gained ascendency 
more rapidly than before. Increasing numbers of free- 
men were borne down by the afflictions of war, to become 
debtors, and therefore slaves ; to become landless, and 
therefore dependent ; to be put in peril, and therefore 
impelled to seek the protection of a lord. All the influ- 
ences that had been hostile to the primitive democracy 
of the English people, from the beginning of their settle- 
ment in Britain, were undoubtedly heightened by their 
long conflict with the Danes. 

20. Arts, and Conditions of Life. As a general fact, 
it is quite certain that the conditions of life, among Eng- 
lish as well as Danes, were still very rude ; but little is 



44 



BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND, [ioth Cent. 



known in detail of what they really were. It is a van- 
ished life. The houses that sheltered it and the fur- 
nishings of the houses have disappeared, and scarcely 
anything of even pictorial representation remains. 

The art of brickmaking, which the Romans gave to 
Britain, had been lost. Even in church-building the use 
of stone was evidently rare. In the century which fol- 
lowed Edgar's reign, much advance in church architec- 
ture appears to have been made ; but few examples of 




AN EARLY ENGLISH CHURCH. 1 



the work of even that period have survived. Wood was 

the common material of houses for the rich and 

well-to-do ; clay, the commoner substance of the 

huts of the poor. In neither the lord's hall nor the 

peasant's hut was a chimney to be found until centuries 

1 The church of St. Lawrence, at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, 
possibly built by Bishop Aldhelm, a famous scholar, architect, and 
man of letters of the seventh century; pronounced by Professor 
Freeman to be " the one perfect surviving Old-English Church in 
the land." 



iothCent.] THE INTRUSION OF THE DANES. 45 

after these primitive days. The means of lighting were 
a smoking torch, or, sometimes, a burning wick bedded 
in a lump of fat, on a pointed stick. King Alfred must 
have made better candles, however, for he is said to have 
devised a mode of keeping time by burning them in 
lanterns marked for the hours. 

The specimens of Anglo-Saxon pottery that have been 
found are said to be mostly rude ; in the eighth century, 
the English were still sending to France for The fine 
glass; yet, in certain finer arts, such as jewelry arts- 
work, embroidery, and the illumination of manuscripts, 
the native artists and workmen appear to have been 
notable in skill. 

Spinning and weaving were household industries, even 
in the palaces of the kings. Alfred's mother is praised 
for her skill in weaving, and Edward the Elder Household 
is said to have " sette his sons to scole and his industrie s- 
daughters he sette to wool werke." But the English 
stayed far behind their Dutch and Flemish neighbors 
for many centuries in the arts of weaving and dyeing, 
though the wool of their sheep was the best in Europe, 
and so valued, even in the eighth century, that the 
Emperor Charlemagne exempted traders in it from cap- 
ture in war. 

21. Scotland. It was at the time of King Edgar that 
a kingdom in the north of the British island, called Scot- 
land in later times, grew to about its final extent. It 
had been known once as the Kingdom of Scone, then as 
the Kingdom of Alban, and finally as the Kingdom of 
the Scots. Part of the old Bernician kingdom, wholly 
English in its population (the district called Lothian in 
modern times), was granted by the English King Edgar 
to the Scots, giving them Edinburgh for their future 
capital town. 



46 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [975-1042 

22. Renewed Attacks and Complete Conquest by 
the Danes. The brief interval of peace and prosperity 
in England ended at Edgar's death (975), and a miserable 
period came after. A new series of Danish invasions 
began, ending in a complete conquest of the country 
by Sweyn, King of Denmark, in 1013, when Ethelred, 
the English king, fled to Normandy, and Sweyn seized 
his throne. Sweyn died in the next year, and one of his 
sons named Cnut (called Canute by the English) suc- 
ceeded him, after some struggle with Ethelred, who re- 
turned, and with Ethelred's eldest son, Edmund, called 
" Ironside," because of his daring and strength. Both 
Ethelred and Edmund soon died, and all England sub- 
mitted to Canute, who proved to be a great and much- 
loved king, though his reign was barbarously begun. 

His whole character appears to have undergone an 
extraordinary change. He shed his barbarism like a 
garment ; he became merciful, magnanimous, 
careful of the welfare of his people, — a Chris- 
tian statesman and a patriot king, who won the affection 
of his English subjects more than any, after Alfred, of 
their own royal race. He placed Englishmen rather 
than Danes in the offices of state, and gave his confi- 
dence especially to a West Saxon thane named Godwin, 
whom he made ealdorman, or earl, as the title now 
became, of Wessex, and whom he trusted with the 
government of the kingdom when he himself visited his 
Danish realm. 

23. The Last English Kings. After Canute died, 
in 1035, tw0 °f ms sons reigned briefly, and then (1042) 
the crown came back to the family of Ethelred, being 
given to his younger son Edward, known afterwards as 
" the Confessor," who had been reared and sheltered in 
Normandy during the reign of Canute. 



io66] 



THE INTRUSION OF THE DANES. 



47 



The French district called Normandy, on the lower 
waters of the Seine, had received that name in the previ- 
ous century, when it was seized by one of the hosts of 
vikings, or Northmen, described above. It was formally 
ceded as a duchy in 911 to their chief, Rolf 
(Rollo in the Latin form of the name and Rou 
in the French form), and, from being known as the Land 
of the Northmen, came to be called Normandy and its 
people Normans. 

Edward the Confessor was a man of such gentleness 



Normandy. 




WESTMINSTER ABBEY AS REPRESENTED ON THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.l 



and goodness that after his death he was counted among 

the saints ; but he was better fitted to be a monk than a 

king. The ruling hand in his government during most 

of the reign was that of Canute's minister, the 

great Earl Godwin ; and Godwin's power, when 

he died, was transmitted to Harold, his son. At the 

1 The Bayeux Tapestry, preserved in the Library at Bayeux, 
France, is believed to have been wrought by William the Con- 
queror's wife, Queen Matilda, and her maids, to picture scenes of 
the Norman Conquest. 



48 BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND. [1066 

death (January, 1066) of King Edward, who had no chil- 
dren, the nearest heir to the crown was a child, a grand- 
son of Edmund Ironside, born in exile, in Hungary, and 
those circumstances made it easy to turn men's thoughts 
toward the crowning of the mighty Earl Harold, whose 
family, for two generations, had held an almost royal 
rank. 

That, in fact, is what came to pass. Harold was duly 
elected king by the national Witenagemot, and crowned 
in the abbey church of Westminster, which the late king 
had built and in which his body was laid. But no sooner 
had the news of Harold's election gone abroad than a 
formidable disputant appeared, in the person of 

William of f , , , 

Normandy the Duke of Normandy, who claimed that King 
English Edward had promised him the English crown, 
and that Harold, being once a shipwrecked cap- 
tive in Normandy, had then solemnly sworn fealty to 
him, Duke William, as Edward's heir. On those grounds 
he denied the validity of the election, and made prepara- 
tions to drive Harold from the throne. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

17. Appearance of the Vikings. 
Topics. 

r. A fresh invasion. 

2-. Origin of the name "viking." 

3. Two lines of their expeditions. 

4. Raids of the Danes upon England. 

5. Eclipse of Christian light. 
Reference. — Green, 44-4N. 

Research Questions. — (1.) In what important point did the 
Danes and English differ ? (2.) What danger to the church 
from the invasion? (3.) To the cause of education? (4.) Of. 
what kind were the books of the period ? (5.) What is meant 
by illuminated books ? (6.) How did Latin come to be used in 
Britain and also in Gaul and other provinces on the continent ? 
(7.) Why were books written in it? (S.) By means of the termi- 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 49 

nation " by " in the names of their cities, trace the extent of the 
Danish conquest. (9.) What good traits of the people would 
an invasion bring out? 

18. Alfred the Great. 
Topics. 

1. Alfred's truce. 

2. His flight. 

3. Alfred in the herdsman's hut. 

4. Collection of an army at Athelney. 

5. Battle of Ethandun. 

6. Division of England between Danes and Saxons. 

7. Alfred as a statesman and teacher. 

8. Alfred's greatness. 

9. The work of Alfred's successors. 

REFERENCES. — Gardiner, i. 58-61 ; Bright, i. 6-10; Green, 47-53; 
Ransome, 11, 13, 16; Pearson, i. 163-181 ; Colby, 19-22; Pauli's 
Life; Hughes' Life; Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vols. i. and ii. ; 
Anglo-Saxon Chron., 349-366. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Point out on the map the recon- 
quest of England as achieved by Alfred. (2.) What did they 
call the part which was given over to the Danes? (3.) What 
does the term mean ? (Gardiner, i. 59.) (4.) When did they 
begin to bribe the Danes? (Gardiner, i. 79.) (5.) Was this a 
wise measure? Give reasons for your opinion. (6.) Name the 
great churchman of this period, outline his career, and show 
some of the things he did for the church. (Gardiner, i. 65, 67, 68.) 

19. Effects of the Danish Struggle. 

Topics. 

1. Kinship of English and Danes. 

2. Effect of their wars on English society. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What good was land in such a time 
as this if its owner could not defend it? (2.) What sort of men 
would be able to defend their land ? (3.) To whom, then, would 
the king naturally distribute land ? (4.) How did the wars affect 
great numbers of less warlike men? (5.) What would they have 
to do for their own protection ? (6.) This method of land dis- 
tribution and consequent vassalage is the beginning in England 
of what system of landholding ? (7.) Did this system obtain at 
the same time on the continent? 



50 THE INTRUSION OF THE DANES. 

2*0. Arts, and Conditions of Life. 
Topics. 

i. Conditions of life. 

2. Building material and house comforts. 

3. Arts and manufactures. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 75-77. 

21. Scotland. 
Topics. 

1. Beginning of the kingdom. 

2. Acquisition of Edinburgh. 

Research Questions. — (1.) From its name, what tribe had the 
most to do in uniting Scotland ? (2.) What was their kinship 
with the Irish ? (Gardiner, i. 63.) (3.) Where is Edinburgh ? 
(4.) How does it rank among Scottish cities ? (5.) Describe its 
founding. (Gardiner, i. 43.) (6.) What reason brought about the 
cession to the Scots of the territory lying between Edinburgh 
and the Cheviot Hills? (Gardiner, i. 64, 68.) (7.) Was that 
a wise policy ? (8.) What race of people occupied the ceded 
district ? (9.) What was to be the character, then, of the future 
Scottish kingdom ? 

22. Renewed Attacks and Complete Conquest by the 

Danes. 
Topics. 

1. Renewed invasions. 

2. Complete conquest. 

3. Reign of Canute. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 79-86. 

23. The Last English Kings. 
Topics. 

1. Edward the Confessor. 

2. Settlement of Normandy. 

3. The government of Edward the Confessor. 

4. Death of Edward and election of Harold. 

5. Claim of William of Normandy. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 86-93. The church before the Con- 
quest: Green, 18, 19, 23-27,30-32; Stubbs, Early Plantagenets, 
58-61 ; Stubbs, C. H.. i. ch. viii. ; H. Taylor, i. 154-163 ; Taswell- 
Langmead, 8, 9. The Synod of Whitby : Green, 29, 30 ; Green, 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. .51 

H. E. P., i. 53, 54 ; Green, M. E., 313-315. National government 
before the Conquest : H. Taylor, i. ch. v. 
Research Questions. — (1.) If the kingship was elective, how 
could it be hereditary ? (2.) Did the Witenagemot desire ever to 
elect a child ? (3.) Why not ? (4.) During whose reign in Eng- 
land was Shakespeare's Duncan murdered by Macbeth ? (Guest, 
133) 

LINEAGE OF THE WEST SAXON KINGS FROM EGBERT. 



1st Generation. 2d. 



Egbert, ( Ethelwulf, 
800-836. I 836-858. 



3d. 4 th. 

Ethelbald, 

858-860. 

Ethelbert, 

860-866. 

Ethelred, 

866-871. 

Alfred, ( Edward, 

( The Great), \ ( Tlic Elder), ' 

871-901. ( 901-925. 



5th. 



6th. 



Ethelstan, 


Edwig, 


925-940. 


955-958. 


Edmund, 
940-946. 


Edgar, 

958-975. 

married, 

1. .-Ethelfled 


Edred, 

946-955- 


. 2. Elfthryth 



6th. 


7th. 


8th. 


Edgar, 
married 

1. Ethelfled; 


Edward, 

( Tlie Martyr), 

975-979- 






Ethelred, 

(The Unready), 


Edmund, 
(Ironside), 


2. Elfthryth. 


979-1016, 
married, 
1. Elfled; 


1016, 
married 
I Eldgyth. 




2. Emma, 
daughter of 
Richard I. 

^ of Normandy. 


f Edward, 

(The Confessor), 

1042-1066, 

married 

I Edgyth. 



9th. 



Edward, 
died 1057. 



10th. 



f Margaret, 
I married 

Malcolm, 
Y King; of Scots. 



10th. nth. 

Margaret, f Edgyth Matilda, 
married married 

Malcolm, Henry I., 

King of Scots. \_ King of England. 



SURVEY OF GENERAL HISTORY. 

SIXTH TO TWELFTH CENTURIES. 

Rise of the Empire of the Franks and of the authority of the 
Popes in the Western Christian Church. Among the king- 
doms founded by the tribes which overthrew the Roman Em- 
pire in western Europe, the first to rise to importance were 
those of the Franks in Gaul and the Goths in Italy and Spain. 
The Gothic kingdom in Italy was attacked, in the sixth cen- 
tury, by the eastern Roman emperor, who reigned at Con- 
stantinople, and was destroyed ; but only to make room for a 
fresh Germanic invasion and conquest, by a tribe called the 
Lombards (Long-beards), who settled in northern Italy and 
established a kingdom there. In this period, the city of Rome 
was left much to itself, and its bishops (already called popes, 
signifying fathers) became its actual rulers, and began to ac- 
quire high princely rank, as well as great spiritual authority 
over a large part of the Christian church. 

Meantime, after much change and division of kingdoms, 
the Franks had been united under a new race of kings, called 
the Carolingian or Carlovingian, who subjugated the Lom- 
bards and became the special allies and champions of the 
popes. The second of these kings, known as Charles the 
Great (Charlemagne), extended his dominion from Naples in 
Italy and from the Ebro in Spain to the Elbe in northern 
Germany ; and on Christmas Day of the year 800 he received 
an imperial crown from the pope, who declared him to be a 
successor to the old Roman emperors in the west. 

The huge empire of Charlemagne went to pieces after the 
death of his son, Louis, and various divisions of it were made, 
resulting (888) in four kingdoms : that of the East Franks, or 



SIXTH TO TWELFTH CENTURIES. 53 

Germany ; that of the West Franks, which became France ; 
the kingdom of Italy ; and the kingdom of Burgundy ; the 
last named soon passing through many changes and leaving 
its name finally to a feudal duchy of the French. Both the 
German and the West Frank kingdoms were split into great 
feudal fiefs, the chiefs of which were rivals in power of their 
feudal lord, the king. 

The Feudal System. The system called " feudal," which 
took form at that time in western Europe, was a system that 
based the whole structure of society on certain peculiar ar- 
rangements for the holding of land. Each one, below the 
king, who held land, was a " vassal," owing some kind of ser- 
vice, military and other, to some one above him, his " suze- 
rain," or overlord, who owed him protection in return. The 
same man might be an overlord to some below him, and a 
vassal to one above, if his holding of land — his "fief," as 
the feudal lawyers named it — was large enough to subdivide 
into lesser fiefs. It was a military organization of society, in 
the first instance ; but the land-lord came to be the political 
lord of his vassals — their judge and ruler, in most affairs, 
as well as their military chief ; and thus, out of the feudal 
system of land tenure, there arose a feudal system of govern- 
ment, which hindered the growth of national unity, by the 
division, the conflict, and the weakening of authority that it 
caused. 

The Revived Empire. In 962, one of the East Frank or 
German kings, Otho I., added the kingdom of Italy to his 
own and again revived the Roman Empire in name, as Charle- 
magne had done, by obtaining the crown and title of emperor 
from the pope. For centuries thereafter each German king 
received the imperial title by coronation at Rome, and claimed 
a sovereignty over Italy, which he exercised only on occa- 
sional armed visits, in a fitful and ruinous way. Neither in 
Italy nor in Germany were these emperor-kings ever able to 
establish an authority that could nationalize their realms. 
Disorder in both countries was increased by the bitter and 



54 GENERAL HISTORY. 

long-lasting quarrels that arose between emperors and popes, 
creating at last, in Italy, the famous factions of Guelfs and 
Ghibellines, which fought each other for nearly two hundred 
years. 

Free Cities. The chaotic state of government in Italy gave 
many rising cities, in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, 
an opportunity to acquire substantial independence in the 
management of their affairs. They became small republics, 
which rivalled in spirit the city republics of ancient Greece. 
A little later, in Germany, the similar state of things produced 
a similar result. Feudalism, in that country, was having its 
worst effects. Even the greater feudal fiefs went to pieces, 
and the German kingdom was being dissolved into petty 
principalities, among which numerous cities were growing 
strong enough to be practically free from any overlordship 
except that which a nominal emperor might claim. 

The Rise of the Kingdom of France. In the kingdom of the 
West Franks many disorders prevailed, among them the 
attacks of the vikings, described in the last chapter. A new 
line of kings was founded, in 987, by the coronation of Hugh 
Capet, Count of Paris and Orleans, who bore the further title 
of Duke of France. The real power of these kings at first 
was little more than their duchy and county gave them. Nor- 
mandy, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Flanders, Champagne, and 
Toulouse, were great fiefs of the crown that long over- 
shadowed it in actual power. 

Conquests of the Mohammedans. In 632, Mahomet, or Mo- 
hammed, the Arabian founder of a new religion, died, and 
his followers went forth to conquer and convert the world. 
Within a generation they had subjugated Palestine, Syria, 
Persia, and Egypt, and were at the gates of Constantinople, 
beginning attacks on the Eastern Empire (sometimes called 
the Byzantine Empire), which went on through the next eight 
hundred years. Before the seventh century closed, they had 
pressed through northern Africa to the Atlantic coast ; in a 
few years more they were masters of the greater part of Spain. 



SIXTH TO TWELFTH CENTURIES. 55 

At about the same time they reached Central Asia and over- 
came the Turks, who then dwelt beyond the Caspian Sea. 
The Turks became converts, and, in the course of the next 
two centuries, they supplanted their Arab conquerors and 
were the lords of the Mohammedan empire in the east. 

The Crusades. Late in the eleventh century (1076), Jeru- 
salem was taken by these Turks, and Christian pilgrims to 
the sepulchre of Christ received treatment at their hands 
which roused the wrath of Europe when it was known. Be- 
fore the century ended, a great movement (the first Crusade, 
1 096-1 099), of French and Normans for the most part, drove 
the Turks from the holy places of Palestine, and founded a 
Christian kingdom at Jerusalem ; but its foundation was not 
firmly laid. Thrice, in the twelfth century (1147, 1188, 1196), 
huge armies were led by emperors and kings from western 
Europe, in vain attempts to make the Christian possession 
of Palestine secure. Vast numbers perished in these expe- 
ditions ; but those who returned brought new knowledge, new 
thoughts, minds expanded and stirred, and remarkable results 
of intellectual wakening appeared in the following age. Feu- 
dalism was weakened by the impoverishment of great lords, 
who spent extravagant sums on the crusades ; towns won more 
freedom, by purchase or by force, and the general gain to the 
people of western Europe was great. 

K?iighthood and Chivalry. In the latter part of the tenth 
century, and the first of the eleventh, the institution of orders 
of knighthood began to produce some refinement of military 
manners in western Europe, by what is described as the spirit 
of chivalry. In reality, it arose from the aristocratic class- 
feeling of the warriors who rode on horseback, making them 
respectful and increasingly courteous toward one another, 
while arrogant and disdainful toward the remainder of man- 
kind. It had, undoubtedly, some civilizing effects, but they 
were probably less than is commonly represented in modern 
romance. 

Industry and Trade. For some centuries Constantinople, 



56 GENERAL HISTORY. 

controlling the trade between Asia and Europe, was the great- 
est of commercial cities. By the Black Sea and the Danube, 
as well as by the Mediterranean, commodities were slowly 
exchanged between the Byzantine capital and western and 
northern Europe, with much trouble from brigandage on land 
and piracy at sea. Gradually Venice, Genoa, and other Ital- 
ian cities, came into the field, helping to handle Byzantine 
trade in the west. Along routes by river and road through 
the country of the Franks, from the Mediterranean to the 
Rhine, and by the coasts and rivers further north, an active 
exchange of goods went on with steady increase. On the 
Baltic, and on the rivers that flow into it, important seats of 
trade appeared at a remarkably early clay. 

The Frisians, of the northern Netherlands, were famous in 
Charlemagne's time for their woven goods ; but in the tenth 
century, Count Baldwin, of Flanders, made his towns the most 
flourishing seats of the woollen-working industry, by inviting 
skilled workmen to them, and establishing fairs. Through- 
out the Netherlands there was great thrift, enterprise, and 
prosperity from a very early time. By the twelfth century, 
cloth-making industries had gained a prosperous growth in 
German towns, among which Cologne had then the lead, and 
the merchants of Cologne had established a " hanse " or asso- 
ciation in London, with trading privileges there. 

Learning. After the barbaric conquest of the Roman pro- 
vinces in the west, schools, except such as taught theology in 
the monasteries and cathedrals, disappeared. Charlemagne 
was the first of the new rulers to interest himself in learning, 
and he drew to his court a society of scholarly men, with 
Alcuin, an Englishman, at their head. In England, a little 
later, King Alfred gave still warmer encouragement to the 
education of his people ; but neither Charlemagne nor Alfred 
did a work in that direction that endured. It was not until 
the opening of the eleventh century that a real wakening of 
intellectual life can be seen. Then crowds of students began 
to flock to Paris, Salerno, Bologna, and elsewhere, to listen 



SIXTH TO TWELFTH CENTURIES. S7 

to famous teachers of law, medicine, and philosophy, who 
gave lectures and held disputes. The state of learning in 
Christian countries throughout this period appears to have 
been surpassed by that of the Arabs or Moors in Spain, and 
in other parts of the Mohammedan world. 

Literature. Before the Germanic and Celtic peoples of 
western Europe had learned to put their thoughts and fancies 
into writing, there seems to have existed among them a great 
body of poetry and romance that was carried in the memory 
of minstrels, for singing and recitation at the courts of kings 
and in the halls of the chiefs. Such songs and tales, being 
thus preserved until Christian times, were then copied and 
worked over by writers in the monasteries, with more or less 
piecing and changing, and some mixing of Christian with old 
pagan ideas. That seems to be the probable origin of the 
older literature that has come down from mediaeval times. 

The ancient minstrelsy first inspired a new singing of its 
songs in France, at some time in the eleventh century, when 
an interesting species of literature, known as the Chansons 
de Gestes, or songs of heroes and deeds, began to be pro- 
duced. In southern France, a more lyrical form of verse, 
devoted largely to themes of love, was cultivated at about the 
same time by poets known as " troubadours," of Provence. 

But the great age of revival for heroic poetry and romance 
came a little later, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
when the ancient lays and legends of Germany received the 
epic forms in which we know them ; when the Nibelungenlied 
was constructed ; when the song of The Cid was sung in Spain ; 
when the Welsh legends of King Arthur were caught up, in 
England, France, and Germany, to be made the groundwork 
of that wonderful group of romances which kindle poetry and 
delight the world to this clay. 

Architecture. By introducing the arch and the vault, which 
the Greeks had not employed, the Romans were the begin- 
ners of an entirely new development of the building art. The 
northern nations that supplanted the Romans took up the 



58 GENERAL HISTORY. 

hint — it was scarcely more — which the latter had given, and 
slowly worked it out. By carrying the construction of arches 
and vaulting to higher and higher perfection, using both 
rounded and pointed forms, varying and modifying both, 
enriching them with ornament, adding gracefulness to the 
strength of their supports, and giving harmony and beauty of 
line to all their accessories, the unknown builders of these 
ages created the styles of architecture called Romanesque and 
Gothic, and raised for Christian worship, in western and 
northern Europe, an amazing number of structures that rank 
with the sublimest works of the human brain and hand. 



THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. 
1066-1199. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS FIRST EFFECTS. 

William I. 1066-1087. 

24. The Duke of Normandy. William, Duke of 
Normandy, was a bold and remarkably able man. He 
had made himself master of his dukedom under difficul- 
ties which few could have overcome. There was a stain 
upon his birth ; his mother, Arlette, or Herleva, was a 
tanner's daughter; his father, Duke Robert, had died 
while he was still a child, and the Norman barons had 
scorned the authority exercised by guardians in his name. 
Yet their proud necks had been bent, and no duke of 
Normandy before him had exercised an authority so real 
as he now possessed. He was far the most powerful of 
the great feudal lords who rendered homage to the French 
king, as vassals in name and form, but who were practi- 
cally independent in their several domains. 

This formidable claimant of the English crown now 
made his preparations to take it by force. If all that 
he asserted, as to Edward's promise and Har- Emptiness 
old's oath, were fully true, they gave him no wmiam-s 
right. Succession to the kingship in England claim - 
was still, as at the beginning, subject to a national elec- 
tion, in some form. Hitherto the kings had been chosen 



6o 



THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. 



[1066 



from one family ; but William belonged to that family- 
no more than Harold did, and neither Edward's word 
nor Harold's word could give him any claim which the 
English or their Witenagemot were bound to take into 




WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, AS PICTURED ON THE 
BAYEUX TAPESTRY. 

account. On the continent this fact was not easily 
understood. It presented a view of kingship which most 
of the nations there had lost. They had allowed crowns 
to become the personal property of those who wore them, 
to be passed from father to son like an estate in land. 
Therefore continental opinion approved the duke's claims, 
and the pope decided them to be good. 

25. The Fall of Harold. Thus authorized and com- 
mended, William of Normandy gathered an army of ad- 



io66] 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 



61 



venturers from his own dominions and from surrounding 
countries for the conquest of England. Harold, with 
equal energy, made ready to defend his crown. In the 
language of the Chronicle, he assembled " so great a 
ship-force, and also a land-force, as no king here in the 
land had before done." But Harold had other enemies 
than Duke William to contend with, and they caused his 
ruin. 

Among them was his own brother, Tostig, who had 
been driven from the earldom of Northumbria by a 
revolt which his misrule provoked. Wrathful against 
Harold, who failed, he thought, to stand by him, he had 




NORMAN VESSEL OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY, RESTORED FROM 
THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY. 



fled to the continent, and had either stirred up or encour- 
aged an ambitious king of Norway, named Harold Har- 
drada, to attack England at just the moment when the 
Norman attack was being prepared. The Nor- 

The attack 

wegian invaders moved sooner than the Nor- from 
mans, and had landed in Northumbria while orway * 
the ships of the latter waited for a favorable wind. 
Defeating the English forces in the north at Fulford, 
they entered York. 



62 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1066 

When news of their landing reached the English King 
Harold, in September of the fateful year 1066, he was 
watching the southern coast, in daily expectation of the 
arrival of his more dreaded foe. The army and fleet 
which he had held together for four months was melting 
away ; his men could be kept no longer from their homes. 
A more desperate situation, more courageously faced, is 
hardly found in history. Taking such forces as he could 
still command, Harold marched northward with speed, 
and surprised and routed the Norwegians in a memo- 
rable battle at Stamford Bridge, leaving Tostig and Har- 
Therout- °^ Hardrada dead on the field. Then, with 
Norwe the ntt ^ e P ause > he hurried back to the south, but 
gians. t 00 } a t e to defend its coast. The winds had 

shifted in his absence, and, three days after the fight at 
Stamford Bridge, the Normans had landed at Pevensey, 
in Sussex, and were laying waste the country around. 
To stop the havoc, Harold was forced to confront them 
in haste, with an insufficient army, made up in large part 
of untrained men. He took his stand on the hill of 
Senlac, near Hastings (where Battle Abbey was built 
The battle afterwards by the Conqueror), and there, on 
SIS ' tne : 4 tn of October, the momentous battle 
ings. which turned the current of English history 

into a new channel was fought. Of English valor and 
English stubbornness there was no lack on Harold's 
side ; but, excepting the stout " house-carls " of his body- 
guard, he seems to have had no trained soldiers, nor any 
who used the bow. He and his men fought with the 
battle-axe, on foot, against mounted knights and men-at- 
arms, and against skilful archers, whose trade was war. 
Yet the English came near to victory. The Normans 
were repulsed again and again, until William, by a feint 
of flight, lured some of the English into a disorderly pur- 



io66] 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 



63 



suit. Then, turning on them, he drove them wildly back. 
From dawn until sunset the fighting raged, and when it- 
ended Harold and most of his faithful thanes were lying 
with the dead. 

The battle of Senlac, or Hastings (both names have 
been given to it), was decisive of the fate of England. 
There was no leader of prestige or authority left to rally 
the people at large, and no nationality of feeling to supply 




THE BATTLE OF SENLAC, FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY. 



the want. While William marched slowly toward Lon- 
don, some part of the Witenagemot met hastily there and 
chose a new king. Its choice was Edgar, the atheling, 
that youthful grandson of Edmund Ironside 
whose claims were set aside when Harold was crowning 
made king. He was still a boy, and his elec- 
tion could have no effect. William's march was unop- 
posed. London could do nothing but submit. Edgar 
surrendered the crown he had not worn ; an assembly 
which might pass for the Witenagemot of the nation 
conferred it by vote on the Norman duke, and on Christ- 
mas Day, 1066, he was crowned King of England in 



64 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1067 

the Westminster of the Confessor, by Eldred, the Eng- 
lish Archbishop of York. 

26. The Norman King on the English Throne. As 
far as legal form could make him so, William was now 
a rightful English king. In the southeast of England 
his authority was established fully from the first, and 
there he began at once to show the policy he meant to 
pursue. He made no seizure of English territory by 
right of conquest, but by confiscation he took lands far 
and wide. Harold's occupancy of the throne had been 
usurpation in the Norman view ; support given to it had 
been treason ; continued resistance to the rightful king 
was deeper treason; the king was merciful if he exacted 
forfeiture of estates without forfeiture of life. This was 
The con- the theory of William's course. He spared 
connsca- n ^ e ' but ne confiscated lands ; and according to 
tions. the cus tom of the age he acted within his rights. 

The landlords who submitted might redeem their es- 
tates by some heavy payment ; but the confiscation 
from those who did not submit promptly was immense. 
Now, too, what remained of the English folk-land, or 
common land, was assumed to be crown-land ; and so 
William, on one claim and another, took a great part of 
the lands within his reach. He distributed them by 
grant among his foreign followers, and thus bound them 
to a common interest with himself in the defence of what 
they had won. 

Nevertheless, we must not understand that William 
was simply rapacious in his treatment of the kingdom he 
had gained. He respected its institutions and tried to 
William's conform his government to English laws. He 
govern- 11 wished to be as masterful in keeping order as 
ment. m t a ki n g lands. He strove to protect his Eng- 

lish subjects from any oppression except his own; but 



io6 7 ] THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 65 

that could not be done. He could not establish his throne 
without making its Norman supporters strong, and the 
power he gave them in their lordships was sure to be 
oppressively used. If we say that he ruled England as 




THE TOWER OF LONDON IN 1597. 

nearly in the spirit of an English king as one could who 
ruled by force of foreign arms, we have said the most 
that we can say in his praise. 

The- character of the new sovereignty, »as one resting 
upon conquest, was marked very quickly by the castle- 
building that began. Almost the first act of the Con- 
queror in London was the founding of the famous 



66 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1067-1071 

Tower, which remains the one conspicuous monument of 
his reign. In other cities, as they submitted, and in all 
places of military importance, the castles of the king 
began to rise. The new lords of the land, too, were 
encouraged to fortify themselves in their possessions by 
the same building of Norman " keeps." Before William 
died, it is believed that he held no less than forty-nine 
castles under his own control, while his barons held fifty 
more. But the castles then erected appear to 

Norman 

castle- have been mostly small and built in haste, since 

building. <- <• 1 • . . 

tew 01 the rums now existing can be traced, 
even in part, to so early a time. The original structures 
were generally replaced, after one or two centuries, by 
the massive strongholds whose broken walls excite won- 
der to-day. 

27. The Completion of the Conquest. In the first 
four years of his reign, William had to deal with a num- 
ber of revolts, which he put down with a merci- 
The r 

wasting of less hand. He crushed Northumberland with 

Northum- . . 

beriand, especial barbarity, going personally up and 
down with his army, wasting fields, destroying 
houses, barns, and cattle, until he had made such a wil- 
derness of the land that it did not recover until modern 
times. 

The final rising of the English against the Conqueror 
occurred (1 070-1 071) in the Fen Country, as it is known, 
of northern Cambridgeshire and thereabouts. Its leader 
was one Hereward, a valiant man, whose exploits were 
so magnified in popular legends that no trustworthy 
account of him has come down. Under Hereward, a 
famous " Camp of Refuge " was established on 

Hereward. 

the Isle of Ely, — then literally an island, sur- 
rounded by the waters of the wide-stretching Fen, — 
and a large body of stubborn Englishmen held their 



1067-1085] THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 67 

ground there for more than a year. William dislodged 
them in the end, by building a causeway through the 
Fen ; but Hereward escaped, and various stories of his 
later career are told. 

Malcolm, King of Scotland, was a troublesome neigh- 
bor, who had twice ravaged northern England since 
William came, and in 1072 the latter led an army against 
him, which carried fire and sword to the Tay. Malcolm 
was thoroughly subdued for the time, and did homage 
to the new king of England, as " his man." The 

_ ,. , , ,. „ 7 . . Scotland. 

English athehng, Edgar, was then a refugee 
at the Scottish court, and Edgar's sister, the Princess 
Margaret, a gentle and pious woman, whose name is in 
the calendar of saints, had been persuaded by Malcolm 
to become his wife. As queen, her refining influence on 
the rude Scottish court, and through the court on the 
kingdom, was very great. 

28. The Conqueror's Feudal System. King Wil- 
liam's confiscation of estates in land opened the way to a 
change in land-tenure, and altered the structure of Eng- 
lish society with most important political effects. It 
cleared the ground for building up in England, more 
deliberately than in any other country, the system of 
land-possession called "feudal." In England, as in 
France and Germany, the circumstances of the age had 
been slowly shaping things to that system, bringing the 
lesser landholders into dependence on the greater land- 
lords ; but the movement in England was not so far 
advanced when the Norman Conquest occurred. 

The Conqueror took advantage of his power to change 
its form, and it is plain that he saved England from great 
future troubles by what he did. If he was hard and self- 
ish in character, he was no less a statesman of remark- 
able powers. He worked according to the ideas of his 



68 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1067-10S5 

time, which took for granted that society must be organ- 
The ized on a feudal plan. Therefore he brought 

variation of a feudal system to completion in his new king- 
feudaiism. ^oni . fo^ ft was a S y S tem of his own, and not 
that of the French. (See page 53.) 

In re-granting the confiscated lands to his followers, he 
seems to have taken care, in the first place, to give away 
few judicial rights or powers that would interfere with 
the exercise of royal authority in all parts of the king- 
dom, through royal officers and courts. He seems, also, 
to have wisely given more protection to the local 
"moots " and other institutions of local popular 

Royal pre- . . 

rogative government, in township, hundred, and shire, 
iar govern- than they had received under the English 
kings ; and the preservation of those was the 
saving of seed, from which a national representation of 
the people in government grew up in later times. In 
the second place, he took care that every freeman should 
understand himself to be, before all things else, the king's 
"man," and should swear allegiance to the king "before 
all others," — which was a very different allegiance from 
that known in France. In the third place, he took care 
to create no formidably large fiefs ; and, finally, he kept 
alive the old national militia system of the Fyrd (see sec- 
tion 10), which went flatly against the feudal military 
scheme. By these sagacious methods William founded 
a feudal system from which the more mischievous work- 
ings were taken away. 

Nevertheless, after William s death, the royal author- 
ity was enforced with great difficulty against a class of 
powerful barons, and only with the help of the common 
people, who saw more to fear from the turbulence of the 
nobles than from the power of the king. Later, when a 
national throne had been settled more firmly, there came 



1067-10S5] THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 69 

about, as we shall see, a union of lords and commons 
against the crown, which made the English constitution 
what it is ; and which could hardly have occurred if the 
feudal system had grown in England as in France. 

29. The Social Effects of the Norman Conquest. 
The effects of the Norman Conquest on the condition of 
the general mass of the English people (except in the 
districts which the Conqueror wasted cruelly) was prob- 
ably not very great. We have seen that the free and 
democratic state of society with which the English began 
their settlement had been undergoing, from the first, a 
grievous change. One small class had been rising ; an- . 
other large class had been slowly sinking to a dependent 
state ; and various influences tended to increase the num- 
bers in the latter class. 

Some such influences have been mentioned, but there 
is a later one to add, which possibly wrought more mis- 
chief to the humbler order of freemen than any before it. 
That was the burden of the " Danegeld," a heavy land- 
tax, first imposed by Ethelred, about 991, as a The 
means of paying tribute to the Danes, but con- Dane & eld - 
tinned thereafter as an established "geld" or tax, still 
keeping the name by which its origin was shown. It was 
a burden on the smaller landowners which many of them 
could not bear, and they sank under it, losing their lands 
and dropping into the dependent and unfree class. 

The state pushed still more of them down, by refusing 
presently to collect the tax in petty sums. It held their 
" lords " accountable for the geld which small landowners 
should pay. This practically resulted in giving to the 
lords a recognized title to the lands on which they made 
good the tax. It probably had much to do with the 
changing of free townships or villages into those depend- 
ent villages which the Normans after the Conquest called 



JO THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1067-1085 

"manors" (see section 11). In the opinion of some 
later students of that obscure subject, every 

The manor . . ' •* 

and the house against which geld was charged, whether 
the house of "a great man or a small, an earl 
or a peasant," was a "manor," in the sense in which the 
Normans used the word. The fact that the term came 
finally to signify a petty lordship shows the extent to 
which the rural population of England had been reduced 
to various degrees of unfreedom and a dependent state. 

By all the degrading processes that have been de- 
scribed, a numerous peasantry had been sunk nearly or 
quite to the condition of serfs before the Normans en- 
tered England. The harsher temper of the latter as 
masters added something, no doubt, to the weight of 
depressing influences, but not much to the influences 
themselves. It is probable that the smaller 
free- freeholders were affected very little by Wil- 

liam's confiscations of land. Above their heads 
there were many changes of " lords," and the new for- 
eign lords used their powers, we can believe, more op- 
pressively than the English lords had done ; yet the 
difference between Norman and English may not have 
been greatly felt. 

30. The Manor. Apparently the manorial system 
had spread by this time over the whole of rural Eng- 
land. The entire country, outside of the boroughs, was 
divided into the township districts which the Normans 
called manors, over the lands and inhabitants of each of 
which a "lord" exercised certain superior rights and 
powers. The whole of the land of the manor was culti- 
vated, for the most part, by the same laborers, on the 
same system, for the same crops ; but part of it, called 
the "demesne," was cultivated for the benefit of the 
lord, while the produce of the other part belonged to the 
laborers themselves. 




THE ANCIENT DIVISIONS OF AN OLD ENGLISH MANOR. 
The portions cross-lined were acres of glebe land cultivated for the priest. Those 
stipple-marked represent the dower. 



72 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1085 

In one sense they were tenants, who paid rent for the 
land they used by labor performed on the lord's land ; 
but they were not free to throw their tenancy up. The 
lord had a right to their labor on his land, which the law 
gave him power to enforce. The greater part of the 
tenants who occupied land on these terms of half-servi- 
tude, known as villani or villeins, had generally the use 
of about thirty acres each. Below them was 

Villeins, -,11 ,, 

cotters, and a more servile class, known as "cotters or 
"borders," who enjoyed much smaller hold 
ings ; and still lower was a small number of unfortu 
nates in complete serfdom or slavery, who had no land tc 
cultivate for themselves. 

The manor house of the lord stood apart from the 
humble dwellings of his tenant laborers, which latter 
were clustered on a village street. The surrounding 
arable or ploughed lands were divided among the culti- 
vators, not in separate single fields to each, but in long 
strips, marked off from each other by narrow " balks " of 
Division unploughed turf, each strip, called a furlong, 
of the land. con taining an acre or half an acre of ground. 
The holding of a villein or cotter was made up of a num- 
ber of such strips, scattered in different fields, and all 
in each field were to be cultivated alike, with the same 
changes or rotations of crops. Of meadow lands, pas- 
ture lands, and woodlands they had different arrange- 
ments, which sometimes divided them and sometimes 
kept them in common use. 

31. The Great Domesday Survey. In the winter 
of 1085, William "wore his crown at Gloucester," as the 
Chronicle tells us, and had " deep speech with his Witan 
about his land." The outcome of that " deep speech " 
in council was a great survey, or inquest, by which the 
land property of the kingdom was minutely ascertained, 



io8 5 ] THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 73 



•JCO 



•nutr Jc^e. Tcfe Affo.ft fa. m^punifck. 
•ffa.ff.ni car In'bmo.e uni^v.i«.ilfc^ Wii.t»oi#ca.«i. 

S/alu tc • m t/ W*j TO o&o.' / 6. Gnu*- . 



tciuw&eW lo^r* . jAtete, 




■fp.cw.caf. J, 

car- \bi-u-(truij rru>\*n^e.^.(A£. J tm .~& fla-- 







-fia.c-«i.car.Jt>i futir.tt.uttti •/c/u.^pct'cu.u.car'. 

(arS^.Tg^ ^ g frV^t &Ttfaxomgr Jh BLljjClUE fe . 

tut. cap rninw.CuTU.7m. uiti*7.tm.ca&'m.i.c3ttt 
jkrcJlyvot .matin 'Se^t.lofN Vt.'ier?.ypd../c fa* 
Valujr.Vt- l£ 7 mice, cjutf fa&Vu- 1*. 

FACSIMILE OF ENTRIES IN DOMESDAY BOOK. 

described and valued, the tenure denned, the holders 
named, and their dependents numbered and classed. 
The results are preserved in an extraordinary record, " to 
which our fathers gave the name of Domesday, the book 
of judgment that spared no man." This precious his- 
torical document is the chief source of the knowledge 
we possess of the state of England in the Conqueror's 
reign. According to its showing, the population of the 
kingdom when William made his inquest was probably 
less — considerably less — than two millions of souls. 
Of that small population some 25,000 are recorded as 
serfs, or slaves, who had no legal rights, and about 200,000 
appear in three divisions, designated as villeins, bordarii, 



74 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1085 

and cotarii, or cotters. Within the next century or two 
those distinctions disappeared, and partly bv 

Villeinage. . . l l , , . , . 

rising from the lower ranks, partly by sinking 
from the upper, all came to be legally embraced in one 
villein class. Reckoning families, it appears that half or 
more of the English people had lost some degree of 
freedom, though keeping a measure of civil and of local 
political rights. 

As yet, the population in towns or boroughs was quite 
small. The towns were about eighty in number, mostly 
mere villages in size ; the important towns were very 
few. According to estimates made by different students 
of Domesday Book, the numbers to be counted in it 
Towns or would indicate from 8,000 to 1 7,000 burgesses 
boroughs. (f reemen f t he boroughs) in all. But neither 
London nor Winchester is included, so that possibly 
there were 20,000 or 30,000 free citizens of towns in the 
kingdom, representing with their families about 100,000 
or 150,000 perspns. 

Generally speaking, the seats of the shire-moots, 
where the shire-reeve — the sheriff of our day — held 
his court, as "the king's steward and judicial president 
of the shire," had become the most favorable centres of 
town growth. After the Conquest the shire was called 
county, its moot a county court, and the importance of 
both in the organization of local government was in- 
creased. The old earldoms, which had been great gov- 
Growtnof ernorships, or vice-royalties, were suppressed, 
towns. anc j t he title of earl was given to the holders of 
certain feudal fiefs. But the growth of towns around 
shire-moots, king's dwellings, and bishop's sees, as well 
as within the walls of the old "burns," or fortified places 
of earlier times, was slow until the next century, when 
more active trade began. 



1066-10S7] THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 75 

32. General View of the Conqueror's Reign. In 

many ways William the Conqueror did good to England. 
That he did any part of it unselfishly can hardly be 
believed ; but he proved his high ability as a sovereign 
by pursuing ends for his own sake which fell into agree- 
ment with the interests of the country at large. Many 
of his measures tended to bring about in time the state 
of things out of which a representative parliament arose. 
The very f eudalistic change that the Witenagemot under- 
went at his hands made it finally a more national assem- 
bly, less a king-chosen council, and prepared it to receive 
the representative " Commons " as a graft on its baronial 
stem ; for now it became a Gemot of the feudatories 
(fief-holders) of the realm, — of all, that is, who held 
land directly from the king (tenants-in-chief), — along 
with bishops and abbots, as before. 

In line with William's general policy was his dealing 
with the church in England. To make it one of the 
supports of his throne, he caused the English bishops 
and abbots to be displaced, as fast as pretexts could be 
found, and Norman prelates put into the high seats, and 
he exercised a firm control over ecclesiastical affairs. 
He did this, too, in the face of the most pow- The 
erful of popes — the imperious Hildebrand, who church 
bore the name of Gregory VII. on the papal throne. 
Yet Gregory and William had no quarrel. At the same 
time, Lanfranc, the king's wise counsellor, whom he had 
persuaded to come from Normandy to be Archbishop of 
Canterbury, was permitted by William to make the clergy 
independent of the common law of the realm, to an ex- 
tent that proved mischievous in later times. 

Thrice a year, at Easter, at Pentecost, and at Christ- 
mas, William, as the old phrase had it, "wore his crown " 
— sat in crowned state, that is — at Winchester, West- 



76 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1066-1087 

minster, and Gloucester, in turn, to hear appeals and to 
confer with the Witan. Hut in August of 1086 

The Gemot _ ° 

of Siiis- he held a greater Gemot, which every Landowner 

of weight in England was summoned to attend. 
It was not assembled in any town, but on broad Salisbury 
Plain ; and there it was made a law that every freeman 
in the land should swear fealty to the king. Then the 
whole great assembly "bowed to him and were his men," 
and swore to " be. faithful to him against all other men." 
It was thus he perfected his scheme of feudalism for 
England, — made it a centralizing and nationalizing sys- 
tem, and saved his kingdom from the long anarchy 
which feudal institutions were bringing upon Germany 
and France. 

Of all the deeds of William's hard and heavy hand, 
there was none, not even the devastation of Northum- 
berland, that roused so bitter a sense of wrong in Eng- 
land as his expulsion of inhabitants from a large, fertile, 
and populous district near Winchester, to make a " New 
Forest " for his hunting. Laying waste a rebellious 
The New district might be looked on in those days as a 
Forest. proper act of war ; but the sweeping of homes 
and families, farms, villages, and churches, from half a 
thickly settled English county, to make a wilderness for 
the king's wild game, was so wanton a deed of tyranny 
that it burned itself deeply into the memory of the peo- 
ple. The judgment of God was believed to have been 
pronounced upon it when two of William's sons (Richard 
and William Rufus), and a grandson, were accidentally 
slain in the New Forest in after years. 

The Conqueror is said to have required all houses to 
The be shut, and lights and fires to be put out, at the 

curfew. ringing of a bell each night, and this is often 
referred to as one of his laws that peculiarly oppressed 



1083-1087] THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 77 

the English people. But the " curfew," as it was called 
(from couvre-feu, to cover fire), was a common police rule 
in many countries at that time. 

33. The Conqueror's Last Years. As the king grew 
old and gross and infirm in body his temper hardened, 
especially after the death of his faithful queen, Matilda, 
which occurred in 1083. He had already been much 
troubled by his eldest son, Robert, who rebelled because 
the duchy of Normandy and the county of Maine, in 
France, were not given up to him. In the fighting that 
ensued, William was wounded by his son's own hand. 
After a time they were reconciled, but only to quarrel 
anew. 

William's last war was undertaken in a savage mood 
against Philip I. of France. Philip had enraged him by 
an insulting remark about his illness and his unwieldy 
bulk of body. He avenged the insult by invading the 
French district of Vexin, on the border of Nor- Wi u iam . 8 
mancly, and burning the city of Mantes. While lastwar - 
personally directing the destructive work, his horse stum- 
bled and gave him an injury from which he died at the 
end of three weeks (1087). 

On his deathbed William is said to have suffered keen 
remorse for the death and suffering he had cruelly caused. 
He expressed a wish that William Rufus, the second 
of his living sons, should be chosen to succeed him in 
England. If Robert, the eldest, must have Normandy 
and Maine, he should have no more. To his WiUiam > s 
youngest son, Henry, born in England, he gave ^sue- 
nothing but a sum of money, with the injunc- cesi »on. 
tion : " Be patient, my son, and trust in the Lord, and 
let thine elders go before thee." Henry was patient, 
and in due time all the heritage of his elders — all the 
dominions of his father — came to him. 



7« THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

24. The Duke of Normandy. 
Topics. 

i. His character. 

2. Obstacles in his path to power. 

3. His success. 

4. His claim to the English throne. 

5. Continental and English ideas of kingship. 
References. — William the Conqueror : Freeman, William the 

Conqueror (Twelve English Statesmen); Freeman, S. H. N. C, 
chs. iv., vii., x.-xiii. ; Gardiner, i. 88-114; Green, 74-81 ; Colby, 
36-41 ; A. S. Chron., 440-463; Ransome, 18-29 ; Montague, 22- 
24, 28, 36, 37 ; Stubbs, C H., i. ch. ix.; Taswell-Langmead, 47-75 ; 
H. Taylor, i. 228-270. 
Research Question. — Why could not Edward the Confessor 
appoint his successor ? 

25. The Pall of Harold. 

Topics. 

1. Difficulties in the way of Harold's defence of his country. 

2. The attack from Norway. 

3. The condition of Harold's forces. 

4. Campaign against his brother. 

5. Battle of Senlac or Hastings. 

6. Lack of leadership among the English and the futile election 

by the Witenagemot. 

7. Submission to William. 

References. — Battle of Stamford Bridge: Colby, 29; Gardiner, 
i. 93-96; Freeman, S. H. N. C, 61-63. Harold: Freeman, 
William the Conqueror, 63-91; Freeman, O. E. H., 297-338; 
Freeman, S. H. N. C, 44-85 ; Gardiner, i. 89-98 ; Bright, i. 22-27 ; 
Green, 69-80; Colby, 29-33; A. S. Chron., 421-443; Pearson, 
i. 332-347 ; Bulwer, Harold ; Tennyson, Harold. 

Research Question. — In what building was William crowned, 
and who founded it? 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 79 

26. The Norman King on the English Throne. 
Topics. 

i. The establishment of William on the throne. 

2. His policy of confiscation. 

3. His seizure of the English folk-land. 

4. Redistribution of the land seized. 

5. His attitude towards English institutions and laws. 

6. Castle-building of William and his lords. 

References. — Norman castle-building : Clark, Mediaeval Mili- 
tary Architecture, i. chs. iv., v. ; Traill, i. 300-303, 328-330. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What difference between the policy 
of conquest and that of confiscation? (2.) Why did William pre- 
fer to confiscate ? (3.) What were English folk-lands and what 
is meant by their becoming crown lands ? (4.) Does our govern- 
ment hold any lands ? (5.) If so, what are they ? (6.) Look up a 
description of mediaeval castles. (7.) What notable building of 
London did William found ? (8.) Its first, later, and present uses ? 
(9.) What notable building did he found at Hastings ? 

27. The Completion of the Conquest. 
Topics. 

1. The revolt in Northumbria. 

2. The revolt in the fen country. 

3. War against Scotland. 

4. Edgar and Margaret at the Scottish court. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Point out on the map the "fen" 
country. (2.) Tell what you can of Hereward. (Bright, i. 50-51.) 
(3.) Where does Shakespeare mention this King Malcolm of 
Scotland ? 

28. The Conqueror's Feudal System. 
Topics. 

1. The change made by William in feudalism. 

2. Terms of regranting land. 

a. His reservation of judicial rights and protection of the 

courts. 

b. Every freeman the king's man. 

c. No large fiefs. 

3. Assistance given the king by the people against the barons. 
References. — Feudal system: Gardiner, i. 81, 104, 113, 116; 

Bright, i. 28-31, 36, 37; Green, 83, 84; Green, H. E. P., i. 35, 



8o THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

77, 7?> 83-112, 122-125; Stubbs, C. H., i. 251-270; Taswell- 
Langmead, 7, 49 sqq., 76, 103 ; Montague, ch. iii. ; H. Taylor, i. 
222-225, 237-239. 

29. The Social Effects of the Norman Conquest. 
Topics. 

1 . Changes in the early democratic state of society. 

2. The influences causing these. 

a. The Danegeld. 

b. The tax-collecting power of the lords and its results. 

3. Influence of William's confiscations on the small freeholders. 
Reference. — Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, Essay 1, 

sect. 6. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Why are taxes like the Danegeld 
once imposed hard to get rid of? (2.) Why is it better for the 
state to collect its own taxes ? (3.) Find out what you can of 
farming the taxes in France. 

30. The Manor. 
Topics. 

1. Extent of the system. 

2. Cultivation of the soil. 

a. The demesne. 

b. Terms of tenancy. 

c. Classes of holders. 

d. Allotments of land and rotation of crops. 
References. — The manor: Cunningham and McArthur, ch. iii.; 

Green, 245, 246; Gibbins, 7-22; Montague, 34; Stubbs, C. H., 
i- 2 73> 399) 4°°; H. Taylor, i. 237, 252-254, 266, 267 ; Maitland, 
i. book i. 582 sqq. ; Ashley, i. ch. i. 
Research Question. — Does the country lord live at present in 
the village with his tenants? 

31. The Great Domesday Survey. 
Topics. 

1. Information conveyed. 

a. On the land property of the kingdom. 

b. Concerning its tenure. 

c. On the classification of its holders and dependents. 

2. Classes of the population. 

3. Later classification. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 8l 

4. Population of towns and boroughs. 

5. Centres of town growth. 

References. — Domesday Book : A. S. Chron., 458, 459 ; Colby, 
38; Gardiner, i. ill, 112; Bright, i. 38, 55 ; Green, 85; Ransome, 
27, 28; Cunningham and McArthur, 12, 32, 34-36, 50; Green, 
H. E. P., i. 124 ; Traill, i. 236-240 ; H. Taylor, i. 264-267 ; Rogers, 
18: Montague, 28, 29; Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond. 
Villeins, cotters, and serfs : Gardiner, i. 31, 69-72, 102, 168 ; Ash- 
ley, i. ch. i. ; Montague, 38, 89, 90; Gibbins, 13, 17, 41 ; Stubbs, 
C. H., i. 426-431 ; Cunningham and McArthur, 33-40; Green, H. 
E. P., i. 214-217 ; Guest, 88 ; Vinogradoff, Villainage in England ; 
Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, 36-66; Traill, i. 356- 
360. 

32. General View of the Conqueror's Reign. 
Topics. 

1. William's policy and the good resulting. 

a. Change in the Witenagemot. 

b. His dealings with the church. 

c. His gemot on Salisbury Plain. 

2. The New Forest. 

3. The curfew. 

Research Questions. — (i.) What dignitary presides over the 
church at Canterbury ? (2.) How does a cathedral differ from 
other churches ? 

33. The Conqueror's Last Years. 

Topics. 

1. William's later characteristics. 

2. Contest with his son. 

3. His last war and his death. 

4. Provisions of his will. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 

Norman Kings: William II. — Henry I. — Stephen. 
1087-1154. 

34. The English Adoption of their Norman Kings. 
As the Conqueror had willed, his eldest son, Robert, a 
good-natured and careless man, received Normandy, and 
the English crown was given to the second son, William 
II., called Rufus or the Red, because of the ruddiness of 
his face. The English were pleased with this arrange- 
ment, which parted England from Normandy and gave 
them a king who was not at the same time a foreign 
prince ; but many Norman barons, having fiefs in both 
countries, preferred to hold them under a single lord, 
and liked Robert better than William, whose temper 
was known to be hard. Hence the Normans under- 
took to put Robert on the English throne, and were de- 
feated by the English, who rallied to William's defence. 

By this action of the English people they accepted, 
in a practical way, the Norman Conquest, and adopted 
the new race of kings as their own. At the same time, 
they really took back their own rights over the crown as 
something to be given or withheld by themselves. It 
was thus a very fortunate division that had come about 
between the new monarchy and the new nobility ; for it 
gave the English an opportunity to make their strength 
felt, by taking sides in the conflict between the two. 

35. The Red King's Wickedness. No sooner was 



1089] FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 83 

William Rufus settled firmly on the throne by his Eng- 
lish subjects, than the baseness of his character began to 
be shown. He scoffed at the promise of just government 
he had made, and despised even the forms of religion 
and law, which his father had treated with great respect. 
When Lanfranc died, in 1089, an unscrupulous priest, 




A king's deathbed, bishops and abbots attending, from a twelfth 

CENTURY MS. 

Ranulf Flambard (translated Firebrand, or Torch), be- 
came the king's chief minister, and delighted him by the 
ingenuity of his contrivances for extorting money from 
rich and poor. He meddled with the local moots, which 
the Conqueror had preserved, and nearly destroyed those 
important courts for a time, by his attempts to make 
them part of his machinery of oppression and fraud. 
He robbed the church, and corrupted it by selling its 
sacred offices, its bishoprics and abbacies, to mercenary 
buyers, who paid great sums. 



84 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1090-1097 

Falling sick, and being in fear of death, the king was 
persuaded to an act of penitence which gave the church 

a very noble head. Anselm, famed through all 

Europe as a scholar, philosopher, and saint, — 
a Lombard, as Lanfranc had been, — was appointed 
Archbishop of Canterbury in Lanfranc's seat. But when 
his health returned, William went back to his evil ways, 
and thwarted the good Anselm in all that he tried to do, 
until the primate in despair quitted England (1097), and 
did not return while the oppressor lived, which, fortu- 
nately, was not long. 

The great sums of money which the Red King wrung 
from his subjects were wasted on the vilest of courts, or 
spent in extravagant pay to soldiers hired from abroad, 
who gave his tyranny its only support, and whose inso- 
lence to the people appears to have had no bounds. 

That English and Norman subjects should lie 
and Nor- together under the feet of so hateful a wretch 

for twelve years would seem strange, if we did 
not remember that combination between them was hardly 
possible at that day. It had been easy for the English 
to help a Norman-born king against his Norman barons ; 
but, until the Normans should cease to be a Norman 
party in the state, and should become Englishmen with 
other Englishmen, there could be no common resistance 
to the king. 

36. Reunion with Normandy. The English had up- 
held William Rufus against Robert in order to separate 
England from Normandy, and if the separation had 
lasted they might have felt that they had some compen- 
sation for the afflictions of his reign. But that solace 
was denied to them. Half of Normandy was wrested 
by William from his loose-handed brother in the third 
year of the former's reign, and five years later, by a 



logs] 



FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 



85 




KEEP OF ROCHESTER CASTLE. 



strange transaction, the remainder came into his hands. 
Peter the Hermit was then exciting the Christians of 
Europe, by appeals for the rescue of Jerusalem and the 
sepulchre of Christ from the Mohammedan Turks ; 
the first crusading expedition was being prepared, and 
Robert of Normandy was eager to join it with a com- 
pany of knights. Lacking money, he applied to his 
English brother for a loan, and obtained it by the mort- 
gage of his duchy. The Red King took possession of 
the duchy, while Robert went happily to the Holy 
Land, doing better as a crusading knight than he had 



86 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1091-uoo 

done as a reigning duke. So England and Normandy 
were again linked together, but not as before ; for the 
duchy was now an appendix to the kingdom. 

37. The Red King's Wars. William's appetite for 
dominion was now sharpened, and he began ambitious 
wars in France, where he partly succeeded in recovering 
the county of Maine, which Robert had lost. Before 
these foreign wars occurred, he had been several times 
in conflict with the Scotch and the Welsh. Malcolm of 
Scotland Scotland, making barbarous forays again and 

again into unhappy Northumberland, was finally 
surprised and slain, and his son Edward died with him. 
His saintly queen, the English Margaret, soon followed 
him to the grave. Then a Scotch party, jealous of the 
English who had surrounded Malcolm, drove them from 
the court ; but, in 1097, William Rufus sent an expedi- 
tion into the northern kingdom which placed Margaret's 
son Edgar on the Scottish throne. In due order, Edgar 
was succeeded by his brothers, Alexander and David, 
and by descendants of David for two hundred years. 

Against the Welsh, William conducted three cam- 
paigns, with not much success ; but by diligent 
castle-building in the Welsh border lands he 
did more than his predecessors towards curbing that in- 
domitable British race. 

Not in castle-building alone, but generally as a builder, 
the second William surpassed his father, and the only 
worthy monuments of his reign are found in surviving 
Westmin- examples of his work. Notable among them is 
sterHau. t ^ e venerable Westminster Hall, which he built 
for his palace near the London of that day, and which 
has been the scene of many great assemblies and events. 

38. The Red King's Death. The wicked reign of 
the wicked king was brought to a tragical and mysterious 



noo] 



FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 



87 



end in its thirteenth year. While hunting in the New- 
Forest, in the summer of the year noo, he was stricken 
by an arrow and died where he fell. Whether hatred 
or accident aimed the shaft is not to be known. There 
were many different stories afloat, and most of them 
named Walter Tirrel, a companion of the king, as hav- 
ing made the fatal shot by mischance ; but the fact is in 
doubt. Nor need we care to know. As the best histo- 
rian of the Red King's reign has said, "The arrow, by 
whomsoever shot, set England free from oppression such 




WESTMINSTER HALL. 



as she never felt before or after at the hand of a single 
man ;" and we can be satisfied to dismiss him with that 
parting word. 

39. The Beginning of the Reign of Henry I. Hap- 
pily William Rufus had never married, and he left no 
son who could claim his crown. His elder brother, 
Robert, was in Italy, journeying homeward from the 



88 



THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION, [noo-1106 



Holy Land. By good fortune the younger brother, 
Henry, was in England, and near at hand. The news 
reached him quickly, and he made haste to Winchester, 
where, long before opposition could gather to any head, 
he had secured an election to the throne, 
with possession of the royal treasure or 
"hoard." His presence and his prompti- 
tude were advantages in his favor, but he 
found a greater in his birth. He was the 
only son born to the Conqueror in England. 
He was reared in England, was taught Eng- 
lish speech, and his father had sought in 
every way to give him the character of an 
English "atheling" in English eyes. The 
policy was wise, and it had its effect. 

Again the Norman barons, who had rees- 
tablished Robert in Normandy, tried to bring 
him to the English throne, and again they 
were opposed by the English people, who 
stood by Henry and defeated the attempt. 
Anselm, who had returned to England, ioined 

HENRY I. ° 

with other good men on both sides in mak- 
ing peace for the time ; but Henry, a few years later, 
retaliated Robert's invasion, defeated him at Tinchebrai 
(September, 1106), took him prisoner and held him in 
captivity for twenty-eight years. 

The relations of Normandy to England were then 
exactly reversed. By an English conquest of Normandy, 
the sovereignty of the two countries was gathered again 
English mt0 one hand. Tinchebrai balanced the scale 
of^ r est against Senlac ; for Tinchebrai was an English 
mandy. victory. Henry's subjects of English and Nor- 
man blood fought together in the battle, under the com- 
mon English name, and nothing, probably, since the 



uoo-1135] FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 89 

Normans entered England, had done so much to bring 
them together in feeling. Wars with France, which fol- 
lowed, kept men of the two races side by side, in the 
same ranks, and continued the fusing process. Though 
Duke Robert was helpless, he had an energetic son, 
whose cause was taken up by the overlord of the duchy, 
the king of the French ; but Henry's hold on Normandy 
was not to be shaken off. 

40. The Character of Henry and his Reign. In 
England, Henry's rule was established .so firmly that, 
after his one contest with the Norman barons, the peace 
of the country was undisturbed throughout his long 
reign. He won the good-will of the English, still more 
than he possessed it at first, by marrying Edith (called 
Matilda, or Maud, after her marriage), a daughter of the 
English Queen Margaret of Scotland, and great-grand- 
daughter of Edmund Ironside, who represented, there- 
fore, the old English royal line. Henry had pleased 
them still more by a Charter which he signed on his 
coronation day, setting forth the rights of the people 
that he held himself bound to respect as king. 

It was the first of a series of what are looked upon as 
the charters of English liberty ; the first of the written 
instruments which mark stages in the growth and defini- 
tion of the English constitution. We shall see 

, , ' , • • 1 /- n TheChar- 

it expanded after a time into the Great Char- terof 
ter, extorted in the next century from King 
John. Concerning the rights most valued and the wrongs 
most complained of in that feudal age, it furnished a 
statement of what the people should expect from their 
king and from the lords whom he controlled, and it gave 
them a ground for equal or greater claims under future 
kings. It was, therefore, a document of high importance 
and very precious to England. 



90 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1100-1135 

It cannot be said that Henry was always faithful to 
his charter ; but he never wantonly set it aside. He 
was far from being an ideal king ; yet hardly another 
government could have been more useful to England at 

that time than the reign of peace and order 
long reign, which he gave it for thirty-five years. He was 

arbitrary and hard in temper, selfish in his 
aims, like all of his race, and less statesmanlike in mind 
than his father ; but he had a shrewd business-man's 
talent and a firm will. His education was beyond that 
of most princes in his time, and so remarkable to his 
contemporaries, who expected none but clerks (that is, 
the clergy) to read and write, that they called him Henry 
Beauclerk, or Henry the Scholar. 

It is a fact that Henry gave up few of the practices of 
William Rufus, in the matter of wringing money from his 
subjects ; but he made those practices regular and exact, 
instead of capricious, and they were easier to bear. He 
demanded regularity and system in everything, and that 

went far towards better government, even if 
isticsof the system was despotic and harsh. He found 

a minister to his liking in a priest named Roger, 
afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and the administration 
of government was better organized than ever before, 
especially on the financial side. 

41. The Exchequer, the Justiciar, the Chancellor, 
the King's Court. The numberless fees, dues, and fines 
from which most of the king's revenue came were placed 
by Henry under the control of a court or council, to 
which some wit of the time gave the name of the Ex- 
The chequer, because the covering of the table at 

Exchequer, which accounts were received was so chequered 
by lines as to suggest the idea of a game of chess be- 
tween the treasurer and the sheriffs who accounted to 



uoo-1135] FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 



91 




EXCHEQUER TABLE, AS DEPICTED IN THE " RED BOOK OF THE 
EXCHEQUER COURT OF IRELAND," FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 

him. It is thought that the lines drawn on the table 
were to aid the rude reckoning of those days. ' The 
name Exchequer still clings to the English administra- 
tion of finance. 

As chief minister, Roger of Salisbury (like Flambard 
before him) was called Justiciar. He had previously 
been the king's chancellor, which signified that he was 
at the head of the 'secretaries, — the clerical The chan . 
force which dispatched the business of the cellor - 
king. The title is supposed to have come originally 
from the cancel t V or screen behind which the secreta- 



92 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION, [noo-1135 

ries worked. It survives in two of the highest English 
offices, — that of the Lord Chancellor and that of the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, — as well as in connection 
with other dignified posts. 

The first appearance of a King's Court (Curia Regis), 
distinctly formed, is in Henry's reign. All of the later 
English courts having a national jurisdiction grew out of 
this tribunal, by the subdivision of its duties from time 
to time. The King's Court, in origin, was itself a sub- 
division of the Great Council, — by which name the 
English Witenagemot was becoming more commonly 
The King's known. The creation of such courts, represent- 
Court. j n g a cen tralized authority, tended greatly to 
consolidate the royal power, and to lessen the impor- 
tance of the local courts or moots ; but it tended also 
to a national consolidation, and to the weakening of the 
power of the barons, from whom the people had more 
to fear than from the king. In the end, the greatest 
of all the defences of popular rights, against even the 
king himself, were often found in the king's courts. 
The same reign in which the royal courts arose saw the 
courts of the hundred and the shire, which William 
Rufus had nearly extinguished, revived by a special ordi- 
nance of the king. 

42. Development of English Towns and their Trade. 
In Henry's reign, for the first time, English towns are 
found to be showing germs of the character in which 
they grew to their later importance, politically and com- 
mercially, as communities distinctly formed and having a 
voice and influence of their own. In its older character, 
the English town has been described as " simply several 
townships packed tightly together," or as " a hundred, 
smaller in extent and thicker in population than other 
hundreds." But now it had begun to be something 



noo-1135] FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 93 

different from townships and hundreds, as an " institu- 
tion " in the kingdom. 

The immigration, after the Conquest, of foreign mer- 
chants and craftsmen, from Normandy and from other 
parts of France, and likewise from Flanders, had caused 
much of the change. They brought in a livelier spirit of 
enterprise, finer skill in many arts, and various 

T , Foreigners 

refinements of manner and lite. In the towns, inEng- 
the fusion of this foreign population with the na- 
tive English came sooner than elsewhere, and had begun 
in- Henry's time to show its deeper effects. His orderly 
government, moreover, gave encouragements to industry 
and trade that had not been, equally known before. 

Even the local trade of the country at this period must 
have been very scant. The roads were, perhaps, no 
worse — possibly they were better — than they Markets 
became in later times through neglect, but ex- and fairs, 
changes between one part of the country and another 
were not widely made. Each town, by royal grant or by 
ancient usage, had its jealously guarded right to a mar- 
ket, and its fixed market days, for neighborhood traffic. 
For foreign trade, a few great annual fairs were estab- 
lished by royal charter, the most important being at 
Stourbridge, near Cambridge, which was especially the 
market of trade with Flanders and Germany, and at 
Winchester, which was convenient for the trade with 
France. A chronicler of the time, Henry of Huntingdon, 
mentions (i 1 5 5) the exports to Germany from England 
as being lead, tin, fish, meat, fat cattle, fine wool, and jet. 

43. Language, Literature, Religion, Art. There 
seems to be no doubt of the fact that England was 
prepared, in the time of Henry I., for a new career of 
prosperity ; and the fact lends more pitifulness to the 
state of things that we shall find in the next reign. But 



94 



THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1100-1135 



the forward movement of the time was more in practical 
than in intellectual ways. The English mind had been 
making little show of activity in thought or imagination 
for more than a century, and if it was stirred by the Con- 
quest, it was silenced at the same time in its own proper 




NAVE OF ST. ALBAN'S ABBEY CHURCH BUILT BETWEEN I077 AND T093. 

speech. Of native literature in the English tongue there 
was no more. The old Anglo-Saxon Chronicle — most 
precious of records — had been continued by pious pens, 
first in the monastery at Worcester, and finally at Peter- 
borough ; but it stands monumentally alone. 

A very marked wakening of interest in historical work 
Historical na cl taken place, and several English chron- 
works. iclers were engaged on writings that are inval- 
uable ; but every one of them — Orderic Vitalis, William 
of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Florence of 
Worcester, Edmer, who wrote the life of Anselm, and 



noo-1135] FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 



95 



others — wrote in Latin ; none of them in the language 
to which he was born. Latin had become the language 
of the learned, and French remained the language of 
the Norman aristocracy and the court. 

English held its ground among the people at large, 
and forced itself in the end on both the lordly and the 
learned ; but, for a long period, it had no literature to 
refine and adorn it. It took up many words from the 
Norman-French, but was not so much affected in that 
way during the first generations after the Conquest as it 
was at a later day. 

The fashionable literature of the age was that of the 
Chansons de Gestes — the epical 
romances and songs of the French 
trouveurs and Provencal trouba- 
dours, which were being copiously 
produced. A Welshman, Geoffrey 
of Monmouth, presently Chansons 
contributed a remarkable deGestes - 
collection of materials for such ro- 
mances, borrowed from the Welsh 
or Breton legends of King Arthur, 
and offered as true history ; but it 
was in Latin that he wrote. 

One of the wakenings of the 
time was in religious feeling, which 
found its satisfaction in a stricter monastic life. From 
Citeaux, in Burgundy (now included in France), came a 
new order of monks, called Cistercians from the place of 
their origin, or White Monks from their dress, Cister . 
who adopted rules and practices more severe cians - 
than those of the older orders. Whereas most of the 
previous monasteries had been planted in towns, or near 
them, the Cistercians sought solitary places. Tintern 




CISTERCIAN MONK. 



9 6 



THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1100-1135 







f ^S?».mm\ ... n mi 



u r*rf ' 




DURHAM CATHEDRAL. . 
Built mostly in the reign of Henry I. 



Abbey and Fountains Ab- 
bey were among the great religious houses that they 
founded in England, beginning usually in a humble way, 
but building, as their numbers grew and their riches 
were increased by liberal gifts, until vast and magnificent 
piles were reared, which we can see in their ruin to-day. 
Monastic The monastic structures in towns were gener- 
buiidings. a jiy demolished at a later time, to make way 
for other buildings, or else turned to other uses ; but 
these secluded Cistercian abbeys, though sadly despoiled 
and broken, were left at last, in many cases, to grow 
beautiful in their decay. A majority of the ruined abbeys 
now found in England were built by the Cistercian order 
of monks. 

The great age of church-building in England had 
opened. Many of the most majestic cathedrals were 
already rising slowly from their foundations, to be carried 



mS-1135] FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 97 

on through long periods, by many successive builders, 
with many changes and modifications of plan, with more 
or less reconstruction of parts, as time injured or con- 
demned the older work, until they stood as we see them 
at the present time. 

44. Henry's Mischievous Plans for the Succession 
to himself. Henry's good queen, Edith or Matilda, died 
in 1 1 18, leaving to him a daughter, named Matilda, and 
a young son, William. The daughter was already mar- 
ried to the Emperor-King Henry V., of Germany. Upon 
the son, as his destined successor, the ambitious hopes 
of Henry were fixed, until a sudden and terrible calamity 
cast them down. 

In 1 1 20, as the king and the young prince were re- 
turning to England from a successful campaign in France, 
the latter embarked at Honfleur in a vessel named the 
White Ship, while the king set sail in another. The 
prince, then a lad of seventeen, had a merry 
company of young people with him, and they sinking 
shared their wine too freely with the crew of white 
the ship. The vessel was heedlessly run upon ip ' 
a reef and sunk, and one man only was saved, of all on 
board. The king, overwhelmed by the catastrophe, is 
said never to have smiled again. 

From that time, Henry's aim was to secure the crown, 
after his own death, to his daughter Matilda, the empress, 
who became a widow in 1125. It was a most unwise 
scheme, dictated by a selfish pride ; and he 

Geoffrey 

made it worse by forcing his daughter, against piantage- 

her will, and against the wish of his subjects, 

to marry Geoffrey, son of the Count of Anjou, in France. 1 

1 Geoffrey was called Plantagenet, from his custom of wearing a 
sprig of broom {plant a genista) in his cap ; and the name passed 
to a long line of his descendants on the English throne. 



9 8 



THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. 



["35 



Years of frightful disorder and civil war were the con- 
sequence, and many of the good fruits of Henry's peace- 
ful reign were devoured. 

45. Stephen of Blois on the Throne. Henry I. 
died in Normandy on the ist of December, 1135. His 
brother Robert had died in his imprisonment the previ- 
ous year, and Robert's son William had been dead since 
1 1 28. Of lawful descendants of the Conqueror there 
remained only Matilda, with two infant sons, born since 
her marriage with Geoffrey Plantagenet, and three sons 

left by Adela, one 
of the Conqueror's 
daughters, who had 
married the Count of 
Blois, in France. Ac- 
cording to the English 
doctrine of kingship, 
these heirs of William 
I. might be looked 
upon as having, not 
rival claims to the va- 
cant throne, but rival 
claims to be preferred 
in the election of a 
successor to the 
throne. 

If Matilda had mar- 
ried differently, or not 
at all, or if her eldest 
son had been old enough to have her rights passed on 
to him, it is quite possible that the wish of her 

Stephen's 

claim to father would have been fulfilled. As it was, 

one of the sons of Adela, Stephen of Klois, 

who had been reared at the English court, who had 




STEPHEN. 



•/ *l ^ 



irj6] 



FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 



99 



seemed almost to be recognized by Henry as an adopted 
son, and who had won popularity by genial ways, hastened 
over to England on his uncle's death and obtained the 
crown. He was chosen to the kingship at London by 
a body which seems to have been made up in part of 
leading men of the city, and partly of notable barons 
and bishops, representing the kingdom at large. Roger 
of Salisbury was one of the latter. On the 22d of De- 
cember Stephen was crowned. 

46. Civil "War and Anarchy. It was seen very soon 
that the qualities which made Stephen popular as a cour- 
tier and a knight were not the qualities that, in those 
rude days, could make a good king. There was no firm- 
ness in his rule, no steadiness in his aims. He was first 
under one influence and then under another, and barons 
of the turbulent class were not long in finding that they 
could have the disorder they loved. They multiplied 
and strengthened their castles, hired 
troops of armed retainers, defied royal au- 
thority, began undertakings of robbery 
and private warfare, and compelled the 
better-disposed to arm and fortify in self- 
defence. The reign of law which Henry 
had established was rapidly broken up. 

The process of ruin was helped by 
the partisans of Matilda. David, King 
of Scotland, her mother's brother, ap- 
peared as a champion of her cause soon 
after the reign began. By giving up 
Cumberland and Carlisle to him, Stephen 
bought a peace which did not last ; but 
David's ravages in unhappy Northum- 
berland were finally stopped, not by Stephen, but by the 
Archbishop of York and the chief men of the north. 




THE STANDARD. 



LrfC 



IOO THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1138-1144 

They assembled their forces on Cowton Moor, near* 
North Allerton, and there, on the 22d of Au- 

The Battle _, . ' „ , , 

of the gust, 1 138, a very famous battle, called the 
Battle of the Standard, was fought. It took 
its name from a curious great standard, mounted on 
wheels, bearing the consecrated banners of several 
churches, and surmounted by a silver pyx (vase), con- 
taining the Host (the sacramental bread of the Lord's 
Supper), which stood in the midst of the English army. 
The battle resulted in a fearful defeat and slaughter of 
the Scots. 

In 1 1 39, Matilda came to England to conduct the war 
on her own behalf, and the state of anarchy and violence 
was then increased. One of the last entries made in the 
precious old English Chronicle, by some pious pen at 
Peterborough, describes the fearful disorder that pre- 
vailed, when " every powerful man made his 
misery of castles," and "filled them with devils and evil 

England. , , , . . . , . . 

men, who took people and " put them in prison 
for their gold and silver, and tortured them with unutter- 
able torture," and pillaged and burned towns, until people 
said "that Christ and His Saints slept." 

Stephen had forfeited, by folly, the support which 
Roger of Salisbury and most of the heads of the church 
had given him at first, and when, in 1141, he was de- 
feated and captured at Lincoln, his cause seemed lost. 
But Matilda, in her turn, threw away her advantages, by 
an arrogance that was insulting to the people who offered 
her their help. Neither claimant of the crown was capa- 
ble of winning a strong party, and the hopeless chaos 
was prolonged through nineteen years. 

Meantime, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Matilda's husband, 
had mastered Normandy by actual conquest, and, in 
1 144, he received the investiture of the duchy in his own 



1148-1154] FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. IOI 

right from Louis VII. of France. He ceded it to his 
son Henry, in 1148, when the latter reached the age of 
fifteen. Three years after doing so Geoffrey died, and 
the young Henry, then eighteen, succeeded him in Anjou 
and Maine. The next year, by marriage with 
Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine (then just di- Angevin 

x dominion. 

vorced by King Louis VII. of France), Henry 
acquired control of that great ducal fief, and was lord of 
a continuous dominion in France, which stretched from 
the English Channel to the Pyrenees. 

47. Peace restored — the Condition of England. 
Henry, instead of his mother, now became the claimant 
of Stephen's crown, and as such entered England with a 
considerable force. The country in its misery looked to 
him with hope, for he had shown promise of ability and 
strength of will ; Stephen was weary and discouraged ; 
and thus it became possible for the leading prelates of 
the church to bring about a peace. In November, 1 153, 
a treaty was signed which ended the long strife. Under 
the terms of that treaty, Stephen wore the crown until 
his death, which occurred in the following year ; when 
Henry II., first of the Angevins, or first of the Plantage- 
nets, as he is variously called, was elected and crowned 
at Westminster, and began an important reign. 

The nineteen years of civil war and anarchy that fol- 
lowed the death of Henry I. had been a time of fearful 
suffering for England ; but it had not many lasting con- 
sequences of harm. The nation even made some gains 
through it all. The needful fusion of English Fusion of 
and Normans had gone steadily on, as the two andNor- 
were continually mingled in the conflicts of mans - 
the time. The feeling of difference between them on 
grounds of race disappeared so rapidly that no mention 
of it can be found, it is said, after Stephen's reign. 



102 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1154 

Good came, likewise, from the weakening that feudal- 
ism sustained. The anarchy of the period has been 
described as "feudalism run mad," and the madness was 
fatal to it. Every sane feeling in the nation was pre- 
pared to support a strong king who would restore the 
Reaction needed checks. When the strong king came, 
feudal* m Henry II., he found it easy to finish the 
anarchy. Conqueror's plans, by thrusting feudalism out- 
side of the administrative government, reducing it to a 
system of land-tenure alone. The lawlessness of the 
period had bred tyranny in plenty, for the common 
people to suffer from, but it was the tyranny of petty 
tyrants, and was readily overthrown. There had been 
no opportunity for great growths of power, with deep 
roots. 

Moreover, the frightful conditions described by the 
Peterborough chronicle were certainly not universal. 
The greater towns had generally been able to protect 
themselves ; peaceful pursuits were not extinguished ; 
even learning was kept alive. Lectures on law were first 
opened in Stephen's time at Oxford, where lectures on 
divinity had been given in Henry's reign ; and thus the 
great university of the future had its birth in tempestu- 
ous and disordered times. In literature, too, 
and some work was done. It was in Stephen's 

reign that Geoffrey of Monmouth excited the 
imagination of the time by those Welsh legends of King 
Arthur which he set forth in a professed History of 
British Kings, and which a Norman writer, Wace, turned 
into a versified romance known as "The Brut." In the 
same distracted reign, the performance of miracle plays 
and mysteries was begun in English churches. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 103 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

34. The English Adoption of their Norman Kings. 
Topics. 

1. Satisfaction of the English at the accession of Rufus. 

2. Dissatisfaction of the Norman barons and their uprising. 

3. Significance of the people's defence of their new king. 

4. Their gain in this clash between nobles and king. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 114, 115. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What advantage to England in 
separating it from Normandy ? (2.) In what way was Rufus's 
relation to England more satisfactory to the people than that of 
William the Conqueror ? (3.) Why did Norman barons prefer 
a weak overlord ? 

35. The Red King's Wickedness. 
Topics. 

1. His attitude toward laws and religion. 

2. Appointment of Ranulf Flambard. 

3. His interference with the courts and ill-treatment of the 

church. 

4. His relations with Anselm. 

5. How the king spent his money. 

6. Cause of his subjects' submission. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 11 5-1 18. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Describe Flambard's work on the 
feudal system. (Gardiner, i. 116, 117.) (2.) How did Rufus 
get riches by the death of an abbot or bishop ? (3.) What tax 
on inheritances at that time similar to ours of to-day ? (4.) In 
what states do we have an inheritance tax ? An income tax ? 

36. Reunion with Normandy. 
Topics. 

1. Rufus's measures in acquiring Normandy. 

2. Change in the relation of the duchy and the kingdom. 
Reference. — Bright, i. 59. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Why had it become necessary to 
rescue the Holy Sepulchre ? (2.) Who preached the first cru- 
sade ? (Guest, 153.) (3.) What was the difference between her- 
mits and monks ? (4.) In what ways were people induced to go 
on crusades? (Guest, 153.) 



104 FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 

37. The Red King's Wars. 
Topics. 

i. With Fiance. 

2. With Scotland. 

a. Malcolm's forays and death. 

b. Expulsion of the English party. 

c. The succession established by Rufus's aid. 

3. With Wales. 

4. The king as a builder. 
Reference. — Bright, i. 58, 59. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What use is made of Westminster 
Hall at the present day ? (2.) What is its present name ? 

38. The Red King's Death. 
Topics. 

1. The circumstances of his death and England's gain thereby. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 122. 

39. The Beginning of the Reign of Henry I. 
Topics. 

1. The circumstances of Henry's accession. 

2. The uprising of the Norman barons. 

3. The return and influence of Anselm. 

4. Battle of Tinchebrai. 

5. Fusion of English and Norman in this war and those that 

followed. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 122-126. 

Research Question. — Why was it of importance for Henry to 
get possession of the royal treasure ? 

40. The Character of Henry and his Reign. 
Topics. 

1. The establishment of his rule. 

2. His marriage. 

3. His charter. 

a. Its significance and importance. 

b. His adherence to it. 

4. His personal characteristics. 

5. His improvement upon the financial system of Rufus. 
References. — Green, 90, 91 . Charter of Henry I. : Bright, i. 64 : 

Colby, 46-48; Ransome, 32; Guest, 156: Taswell-Langmead, 
77-79; Stubbs, S. C , 99-102 ; H. Taylor, i. 273. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 105 

Research Questions. — (1.) Why are hard terms evenly and 
justly enforced more endurable than easier terms unevenly or 
unjustly enforced ? (2.) Why does a prospect of change in the 
tariff injure business more than either a high or low one once 
settled ? 

41. The Exchequer. — The Justiciar. — The Chancel- 

lor. — The King's Court. 
Topics. 

1. The Exchequer and its duty. 

2. Bishop of Salisbury as justiciar. 

3. The chancellor. 

4. The origin and outgrowths of the King's Court. 

5. Henry's revival of other courts. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 126, 127; Montague, 26, 27,31-33; 
Ransome, 35-39; Bright, i. 75, 76; Green, H. E. P., i. 137, 138 ; 
Stubbs, C. H., i. 346-355, 375-39 2 - 

Research Questions. — (1.) What are the duties to-day of the 
Lord Chancellor and of the Chancellor of the Exchequer ? 
(Montague, 27, 173.) (2.) Name the offices in our own govern- 
ment corresponding to them. (3.) In what respect was a king's 
court better for a man than a shire's court ? 

42. Development of English Towns and their Trade. 

Topics. 

1. Change in the character of towns. 

2. Effect of foreign immigration. 

3. The local trade : a, roads ; b, markets and market-days. 

4. The foreign trade : a, fairs ; b, exports. 

References. — English towns : Colby, 70 ; Green, 92-95 ; Gar- 
diner, i. 72, 168-171 ; Cunningham and McArthur, ch. iv. ; Mon- 
tague, 9, 35; Green, H. E. P., i. 196-214; Gibbins, 22-31; 
Stubbs, C. H., i. 623-632. Markets and fairs : Ashley, i. ch. 
i. ; Rogers, 145-152; Traill, i. 208, 365, 462-464. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What kind of land is suitable for 
sheep-raising? (2.) How does wool rank in importance with 
other manufacturing fibres. (3.) Of what importance was it 
among the sources of English wealth ? (4.) To whom do the 
British owe their first knowledge of woollen manufactures ? 
(5.) With what country on the continent did the British com- 



106 FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 

pete in the wool trade ? (6.) How would this clash of trade 
interests influence international relations ? (7.) In what country 
did they find their best market ? (8.) What circumstances 
stimulated woollen manufacture in England ? (9.) Name some 
cities in the British isles famous for their woollen manufactures. 
(10.) What office of the English government is associated with 
the historic wool-sack ? (11.) Describe the climate of England 
and note its effect upon sheep-raising. (12.) What act of de- 
vastation of William the Conqueror eventually brought about 
increase in sheep-raising ? (Article " Wool," Ency. Brit.) 

43. Language. — Literature. — Religion. — Art. 

Topics. 

1. Condition of England under Henry. 

2. Direction of the forward movement. 

3. Intellectual matters. 

4. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other historical works. 

5. Names of writers of such works and language used. 

6. The use of Latin as a language. Of French. Of English. 

7. Poetry and religious awakening. 

8. The Cistercians and their abbeys. 

9. Destruction of town monasteries. 

10. Era of church-building. 

References. — Traill, i. 254, 344-356; Green, 95. Saxon and 
Norman: Colby, 33-36; Freeman, S. H. N. C, ch. ii ; Traill, i. 
343-354. Anselm : Green, 73, 74,90, 91, 96; Gardiner, i. 117. 
1 18, 125, 126 ; Bright, i. 61, 62, 65, 69, 71 ; Ransome, 31, 33, 41 ; 
Guest, 152, 156. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What is the racial difference be- 
tween an Anglo-Saxon and a Norman ? (2.) What elements 
made up the Norman language ? (3.) If the two races did not 
amalgamate in England for some time, what was the condition 
of the language ? (4.) Name the novel of Scott which shows this 
alienation between Anglo-Saxon and Norman. (5.) Bring into a 
class a list of objects having both a Saxon and a Norman name. 
(Guest, 137.) (6.) What modern poet wrote of King Arthur? 
(7.) Who has a poem on Tintern Abbey ? (8.) Of what rank as 
regards other church dignitaries was the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury ? (9.) Whom did he especially represent in England ? (10.) 
Was he necessarily an Englishman ? (11.) In what way might his 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 107 

foreign birth be of advantage to his people? (12.) Do churches 
hold property to-day ? (13.) Why, after doing homage to Rufus, 
did Anselm refuse to do homage to Henry ? (Johnson, N. E., 
206, 207.) (14.) Show how this was the beginning of the oppo- 
sition between church and state in England. 

44. Henry's Mischievous Plans for the Succession 
to Himself. 

Topics. 

1. Henry's family. 

2. Death of his son. 

3. His attempt to secure the succession to his daughter. 
References. — Gardiner, i. 129-131. The White Ship: Colby, 

49-52. 
Research Questions. — (i.) Bring into class and read Mrs. 
Hemans's poem commemorating the death of Henry I.'s son. 
(2.) What was the objection to a woman as ruler ? 

45. Stephen of Blois on the Throne. 
Topics. 

1. Death of Henry and of Robert. 

2. Lawful descendants of the Conqueror. 

3. Matilda's claim from the English point of view. 

4. Choice of Stephen. 

References. — Stubbs, E. P., ch. ii. ; Green, 98-101. Stephen's 
charters: Stubbs, E. P., 16, 17; Stubbs, C. H., i. 320-322; 
Taswell-Langmead, 83, 84; Green, H. E. P., i. 144. 

Research Question. — Show from the genealogical table on 
page 108 the relationship of Stephen and Matilda, and their re- 
spective hereditary claims to the throne. 

46. Civil War and Anarchy. 
Topics. 

1. Characteristics of Stephen. 

2. Encroachment of the barons. 

3. Matilda's champion. 

4. Battle of the Standard. 

5. Matilda's arrival and the defection from Stephen. 

6. Failure of Matilda. 

7. The gathering of an Angevin dominion under Matilda's son. 
References. — Stubbs, E. P., ch. ii. ; Bright, i. 80-86. Anarchy 



io8 



FUSING OF THE NEW NATION. 



in Stephen's reign: Colby, 52, 53; Gardiner, i. 134, 135; Green, 
102, 103; Bright, i. 86-88. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Why was castle-building on the 
part of the barons contrary to English policy? (2.) Why was 
Stephen more likely to permit it than his predecessors? (3.) 
What was the effect on his power ? 

47. Peace restored. — The Condition of England. 
Topics. 

1. Henry's appearance in England. 

2. State of Stephen's cause. 

3. The treaty of peace. 

4. Condition of England during this time. 

5. Weakening of feudalism. 

6. Greater towns and growth of Oxford. 

7. Advance in literature. 

8. Miracle plays and mysteries. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 136, 137. The church in Stephen's 
reign : Green, 103 ; Traill, i. 267-269. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Who performed these miracle plays 
and mysteries first ? (2.) What was the object of them ? (3.) 
Is there such a play performed at present? (4.) Where? (5.) 
Discuss the influence which the Norman family as a whole had 
on the development of England. 



LINEAGE OF THE NORMAN KINGS FROM THE CON- 
QUEROR TO STEPHEN. 

Robert, 

Duke of Normandy, 
died 1 135. 

William II., 

called Unfits, 

10S7-1100. 



William I., 

( 'Hie Conqueror), 

1066-1087, 

married 

Matilda 

of Flanders. 



Henry I., 

(Beauclerk), 

1 100-1135, 

married 

Matilda 



Matilda, 
married J 
Geoffrey, 
(Plantagenet), 



of Scotland. ( Count of A nj on. 



Adela, 

married 

Stephen, 

Count of Blots. 



Stephen, 
"35-1154- 



1 First married to the Emperor Henry V. ; without offspring. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. 

Angevin, or Early Plantagenet, Kings : Henry II. — 
Richard I. 1154-1199. 

48. England the Chief State in an Angevin Em- 
pire. Whatever his character and conduct might be, a 
prince who already ruled nearly half of France could not 
mount the throne of England without bringing new 
influences to bear on that country, with important ef- 
fects. Until the Norman Conquest, the relations of the 
English people with the continent had been few and 
slight. They had been almost outside of the move- 
ment of events in Europe, and of the movements of 
thought and feeling that went with events. By their 
connection with Normandy they had been drawn a little 
way into the current of activities, but hardly more than 
to be touched. Even the great agitation of the Crusades 
had been felt so slightly that no English response to it 
appears to have been made. But now the small Norman 
tie between England and continental Europe was enlarged 
to a powerful bond. 

A King of England who was, at the same time, Duke 
of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, 
Count of Maine, Count of Poitou, and Count of Tou- 
raine, with claims to the overlordship of Brittany and 
Toulouse, to say nothing of the overlordship of Scotland 
and Wales, was one of the greatest of European sover- 



HO THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. ["54 

eigns, — near to rivalry in rank with the German Em- 
peror-King, and exceeding him in actual power. England 
was raised in rank among the nations by the 
the King of rank of its king. A livelier national spirit was 
ng an ' formed ; interest in the doing, thinking, and 
feeling of other parts of the world was widened ; inter- 
course with other countries was enlarged. Against 
these advantages there were almost no disadvantages 
to be weighed during the reign of Henry II. He neither 
neglected his island kingdom nor dragged it into conti- 
nental strifes. 

49. Restoration of Order by Henry II. Henry had 
just reached manhood when he took the sceptre ; but 
he seemed to be full-grown in all his powers. He pos- 
sessed a sturdy body, an intensely active mind, and a 
restless temperament that never knew fatigue. He 
acted from the first moment with sound judgment, and 
with an energy hard to resist. 

Before the end of his first year, says Bishop Stubbs, 
Henry had disarmed the feudal party, restored the regu- 
lar administration of the country, banished the mercena- 
ries, destroyed the castles which had been built without 
royal license (called "adulterine castles"), and "showed 
the intention of ruling through the means, if not under 
the control, of his national council." 1 Before his third 
year was far spent, he had compelled even the King of 
Scotland to surrender the earldoms in Cumberland and 
Northumberland which Stephen had given up. Disorder 
in England was disappearing and weakness in its govern- 
ment was at an end. The king was soon able to quit 
the island for long periods, while he attended to the 
affairs of his dominions in France, leaving his kingdom 
under the care of two able and faithful justiciars. 
1 Stubbs, Const. Hist, of Eng., ch. xii. sect. 137. 



ii59-«6 3 ] UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. Ill 

From 1 1 59 until the beginning of 1163, England saw 
nothing of its king ; but its government was quietly car- 
ried on. Some part of that long period was employed 
in an attempt to make good the claims of his wife, 
Eleanor of Aquitaine, to the county of Toulouse, in the 
south of France. The war was not success- Warin 
ful ; but it produced important consequences France - 
in England. Henry's right to call on his military ten- 
ants or vassals in England and Normandy for military 
service in Aquitaine was questionable, at least. He did 
not attempt to claim that service arbitrarily, but offered 
an alternative which many were glad to accept. Those 
who preferred to remain at home were allowed to do so 
on payment of a certain tax, proportioned to the estate 
they held. With the money thus collected, Henry hired 
an army of experienced soldiers, more effective for war 
than the feudal bands that he would otherwise have 
led. At the same time, he introduced a practice which 
became common, of commuting military ser- 
vice for what was called scutage (shield-money, 
from the Latin scutum, a shield), and that practice, in 
the future, acted fatally on the feudal military system, 
as can easily be understood. 

50. The King's Conflict with Thomas Becket. In 
the last year of his long absence from England the king 
committed an error which sadly troubled the remainder 
of his reign. His chancellor, Thomas Becket, a man 
of brilliant gifts and many accomplishments, had won 
Henry's heart and become his most intimate companion 
and friend. Like most educated men of that age, Becket 
was nominally a priest, but lived the life of a courtier and 
man of the world, and had even led a large following 
of knights in the king's wars. Nevertheless, when a 
vacancy in the archbishopric of Canterbury occurred, 



112 



THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1163-1164 



Henry determined to place his friend in that high seat 
He had plans for undoing the mistaken work of Lan- 
franc, who made the clergy independent of ordinary courts 
and of the English common law, and he expected that 
Becket, as archbishop, would work with him to that end. 
Becket is said to have taken the sacred office unwill- 
ingly, and to have warned the king that he should not 
aqt in it according to the wish which he knew to be in 
the latter's mind. If that be true, Henry is mostly to 
Beckers be blamed for the tragical conflict that ensued, 
conduct. g ut B ec k e t; W as uncompromising from the first, 
and seemed determined to set himself against the king, 
as a rival power in the state. 

The noblest work of Henry's reign was in the reforms 
that he brought into the ad- 
ministration of the law, and 
nothing stood in its way so 
much as the exemption of the 
clergy from punishment by civil 
authority, for even the worst 
crimes. This drew crowds of 
bad men into the church, for 
the shelter it gave them in 
their wicked deeds, and nothing 
could be more reasonable than 
Henry's wish to bring such 
"criminous clerks," as they were 
called, within reach of the law. 
But when that and other mat- 
ters of reform were embodied in a famous enactment, 
called the Constitutions of Clarendon, submitted 

Constitu- 

tionsof to a Great Council, held at Clarendon, near 

Clarendon. „ .. . . ^ -n , ... 

Salisbury, in 1 164, Becket was violent in opposi- 
tion, yielding at last some kind of assent, which he after- 




BECKET AND HIS SECRETARY, 
FROM AN OLD MS. 



u 7 o] UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. 1 13 




TRANSEPT OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, THE SCENE OF BECKET'S 
MURDER. 



wards recalled, claiming to have been tricked. Accounts 
of what occurred are not clear; but this was the outbreak 
of a quarrel which roused hot passions on both sides. 

The archbishop was driven to France, and when, six 
years afterwards, he was persuaded to return, it was not 
to be at peace. His first measures, on reentering his 
see, were so offensive to Henry, then in Normandy, that 
the latter cried in a rage : " What a parcel of fools and 
dastards have I nourished in my house, that none of 
them can be found to avenge me of this one 

t i i > <-rti i i • The mur- 

upstart clerk. lhe hasty exclamation was derof 

Becket 

caught up by four of his knights, who left the 

court secretly and hurried into England, to carry out 



114 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1170 

what they believed to be the wishes of the king. They 
found the archbishop in his cathedral at Canterbury, on 
the evening of the 29th of December, and killed him at 
the foot of the altar. The dreadful crime shocked Eng- 
land and all Europe, and probably no one was so appalled 
by it as King Henry. It has never been supposed that 
he intended the savage deed ; his guilt was in the pas- 
sion with which he spoke, and the penalties that he paid 
for it were heavy during all the remainder of his life. 
Though Becket had been the champion of no religious 
cause, he was thought to have died a martyr's death. 
He was canonized by the pope, and pious pilgrims went 
in throngs to his shrine at Canterbury, as to a sacred 
place. Henry took steps at once to acquit himself 
before the pope, and then went hastily into Ireland, to 
remain until he could be absolved. 

51. Beginning of the English Conquest of Ire- 
land. The king, on going to Ireland, took into his own 
hands an undertaking of conquest which some of his 
subjects had already begun. The Celtic island was in 
a deplorable state. The vikings who assailed it in the 
eighth and ninth centuries (see sect. 17) had destroyed 
its schools of Christian learning and scattered the com- 
munities that gave it Christian light. They had estab- 
lished settlements on its eastern coast, which were called 
Danish kingdoms, but which were scarcely more 
kingdoms than colonies for piracy and trade. Their traf- 
fic was largely in men, women, and children, 
kidnapped in England and brought from Bristol, to be 
sold into slavery to the Irish or to traders from other 
lands. The Danish colonists were perpetually at war 
with their Irish neighbors, and the Irish were as per- 
petually at war among themselves. The clans or tribes 
of the latter were loosely grouped into four kingdoms, — 



1171-1172] UPBUILDING OF ENCxLISH LAW. 115 

Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, — over which 
the O'Neils, kings of Ulster, and the O'Briens, kings of 
Minister, were rival claimants of a supremacy which 
neither could make good for any long time. 

Henry had formed plans for the conquest of Ireland 
as early as n 55, and the pope had authorized his under- 
taking in the name of the church ; but circumstances 
had caused delay. At length, certain Norman-Welsh 
barons obtained permission to help a fugitive king of 
Leinster recover his throne. In doing so they acquired 
a strong footing in the island, and their leader, one 
Richard de Clare, known as Strongbow, took strong- 
the title of Duke of Leinster and was rising to conquest 
great power. This independent conquest was ofIrel a u <i- 
not to Henry's liking, and he now found more than one 
reason for going personally into Ireland, to gather the 
fruits of it into his own hands. The task was not diffi- 
cult. Every part of the island except Connaught sub- 
mitted within a few months, and the Irish church 
accepted the rule and discipline of Rome. 

Thenceforth the English kings were " Lords of Ire- 
land" by title, but not in fact, for the conquest was far 
from complete. The English were masters, as the 
Danes had been, of a few towns and districts on the 
eastern and southeastern coast, and were con- TheEng . 
stantly at war with their Irish neighbors ; Ush Pale - 
while the Irish, as before, were persistently at war 
among themselves. The small region held by the Eng- 
lish, called at a later time "the English Pale," grew 
smaller, instead of being enlarged, and its inhabitants, 
instead of showing a more civilized life to their neigfh- 
bors, soon sank to. the same plane. 

52. The Troubled Ending of Henry's Reign. 
What Henry had done, or seemed to do, in Ireland, was 



u6 



THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1172-1183 



so pleasing to the head of the church at Rome that 
papal forgiveness for Becket's death was won. On re T 
turning to Normandy, in the spring of 1172, he met 
representatives sent by the pope to absolve him, on his 
oath that he had not planned or intended the crime of 
his knights. He was required, however, to annul the 
Constitutions of Clarendon, and thus far was driven to 
y a. retreat from his reforms. Later, he did humble pen- 
ance at Becket's tomb, and the curtain 
was dropped on that tra- 
gedy of his reign. 

But new troubles arose 
to embitter his life. Foes 
in his own household de- 
stroyed the peace of his 
Queen l ast years. His 
Eleanor. wifCj Eleanor of 

Aquitaine, a woman of abil- 
ity, but of bad passions 
and no principles, gave 
teachings of discontent to 
her sons. Henry seems to 
have tried hard to make 
arrangements that would 
satisfy them, but did not 
succeed. He had caused 
his eldest son, Henry, to 
be crowned in advance, as 
his successor, with no bet- 
ter result than a rebellion, in the young king's name, 
assisted from both Scotland and France. Henry mas- 
tered it with all his old vigor, and was able for some 
years to go on with his great work of political organiza- 
tion and legal reform. He had given, his second son, 




HENRY II. ELEANOR. 

Effigies in the abbey church of Fontevrault. 



1183-11S9] UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. 1 17 

Richard, the government of Aquitaine, had married his 
third son, Geoffrey, to the young Duchess of Brittany, 
and intended Ireland for his youngest son, John. Rich- 
ard, by harsh oppression, provoked a revolt in Aquitaine, 
and his brothers Henry and Geoffrey took arms Thesons0 f 
with the insurgents against him. The unhappy Henr y IL 
father was then obliged to defend one of his sons against 
the other two. In the midst of this painful strife the 
younger Henry died, and peace was made with diffi- 
culty between the remaining brothers. Two years later 
Geoffrey died, and only Richard and John were left to 
give trouble to the unhappy king, which they were willing 
enough to do. John, sent to govern Ireland, behaved so 
insolently there that his father called him back ; while 
Richard sulked because he was not crowned in anticipa- 
tion, as his elder brother had been. 

In 1 1 87, all Europe was excited by news that Jerusa- 
lem had fallen again into Mohammedan hands. A new 
and mighty champion of the Arabian prophet, called 
Saladin, had risen in the east, and had carried all before 
him. This time England felt the thrill, and both Henry 
and Richard took the cross, as the French king and 
other princes had done ; and the Great Council voted an 
enormous tax, no less than one tenth of every man's 
chattels and goods, to be known as the "Saladin 

° The 

Tithe." But before the new Crusade could be Saiadin 

Tithe 

set on foot, a fresh revolt against Richard broke 
out in Aquitaine, leading to quarrels between Henry and 
the French king, in which Richard joined the latter 
against his father. This was a deathblow to the afflicted 
king. He submitted to every demand ; then took to his 
bed, and died, at Chinon, on the 6th of July, 1189, his 
last moments pained by the discovery that even John, 
his best loved son, had been in the rebellious league. 



Il8 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1154-1189 

53. The Legal Reforms of Henry II. As de- 
scribed by Professor Maitland, the historian of English 
law, the legal reforms of Henry II. were supremely 
important in their lasting effect. Until his reign, " the 
great bulk of all the justice done was done by those 
shire-moots and hundred-moots which the Conqueror and 
Henry I. had maintained as part of the ancient order, 
and by the newer seignorial courts which were springing 
up in every village." The king's own court was in the 
main a tribunal for causes in which the king or the 
barons were concerned. Had it continued to be no 
more than this, the Old English law — the law 

The Old . & 

English that prevailed in the reign of Edward the Con- 
fessor, called " St. Edward's law " — would 
probably "have split into a myriad local customs, and 
then at some future time Englishmen must have found 
relief from intolerable confusion in the eternal law of 
Rome," which nourished absolute government wherever 
it was introduced. 

But that did not happen, because under Henry II. the 
king's own court " flung open its doors to all manner 
of people," and became a bench of professional justices, 
sitting periodically in every county, instead of an occa- 
sional assembly of warlike barons. "Then," says Pro- 
fessor Maitland, "begins the process which makes the 
The com- custom of the king's court the common law 
moniaw. of England." He adds: "Speaking briefly, 
we may say that he [Henry II.] concentrated the whole 
system of English justice round a court of judges pro- 
fessionally expert in the law. He could thus win money 
— in the Middle Ages no one did justice for nothing — 
and he could thus win power ; he could control, and he 
could starve, the courts of the feudatories. In offer- 
ing the nation his royal justice, he offered a strong and 



1154-11S9] UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. 1 19 

sound commodity." " King Henry and his able minis- 
ters came just in time — a little later would have been 
too late : English law would have been unified, but it 
would have been Romanized." 1 

Among the legal institutions of the English people, 
that of trial by jury is, perhaps, the most cherished of 
all. It grew out of something very different from the 
jury as we know it at the present day. So much is 
clear ; but what the early procedure was from which it 
rose has been a subject of much study and dispute. In 
the opinion that now prevails, the origin of trial Tria i by 
by jury " was rather French than English, jury - 
rather royal than popular ; " but the English made it 
what it is, " and what it is, is very different from what 
it was." It is supposed to have come from a proceeding 
begun by the Frankish kings, who, when their rights 
were in dispute, caused an " inquest " to be held, assem- 
bling the best and oldest men of the neighborhood and 
questioning them under oath. " It is here," says Pro- 
fessor Maitland, "that we see the germ of the jury." 

The Normans brought the procedure of " inquest " to 
England, and their first important use of it was in the 
preparation of the Domesday Book, " compiled out of the 
verdicts rendered by the men of the various hundreds 
and townships of England in answer to a string of ques- 
tions." "Then Henry II., bent upon making his justice 
supreme throughout his realm, put this royal remedy at 
the disposal of all his subjects. This he did not do by 
one general law, but piecemeal, by a series of Assize of 
ordinances known as ' assizes,' some of which clarendon - 
[the Assize of Clarendon, the Assize of Northampton, 
etc.] may yet be read, while others have perished." 

1 Pollock and Maitland, Hist, of English Law, book i. ch. v.; 
also, Maitland, in Social Engla?id, ch. iii. 



120 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION, [1154-1189 

Trial by jury began from Henry's time to take the 
cessation place of the barbarous "trials by combat," in 
combat by wmcn disputes and accusations were supposed 
and ordeal. to be righteously settled by fighting ; and of the 
still worse "ordeals," which subjected accused persons 
to sufferings and perils, by fire or water, from which 
nothing but miracle, or the "judgment of God," could 
-save them. As juries were representative bodies, the 
growing use of them made the idea of " representation " 
an increasingly familiar one, and was politically important 
as well as legally so. 

By his Assize of Arms, issued in 1181, Henry struck 
an almost final blow at the feudal military system and 
the power of the greater barons. It revived, or strength^ 
Assize of ened, the old national militia, called the Fyrd, 
Arms. f th e Anglo-Saxons, requiring every freeman 
to provide himself with arms and to be in readiness for 
military service when called. 

54. Literature. Naturally, the study of Law was 
encouraged in this reign of the lawyer-king, and the 
literature of English law had its birth in a " Treatise on 
the Laws and Customs of England," ascribed to Ranulf 
Glanvil, who was justiciar in the later part of Henry's 
reign. " Law and literature grew up together ; " for 
Roger Hoveden the chronicler and Walter Map the 
poet were among the travelling justices employed by 
waiter the king. I n the writings of Walter Map, if 
the Arthur a ^ tnat * s ascribed to him was his own, there 
legends. j s a fi ner quality of genius than England (or 
Britain, for Walter Map was probably Welsh in blood) 
had produced before. He is believed to have been the 
creator of those romances of the Holy Grail, of Lancelot 
of the Lake, and of the Death of Arthur, which put the 
soul of poetry and of spirituality into the crude legends 



1154-11S9] UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. 



121 



of King Arthur, as Geoffrey of Monmouth had gathered 
them up in his pseudo History of the Britons. In that 
view he would lead the line of the great British poets, 
though he wrote in the Latin of the clerical order to 
which he belonged. His other works were principally 
satirical poems against the monks. 

Of literature in the language of the people there was 
nothing yet but a few homilies, or simple sermons, and 
popular songs and tales which passed from lip to ear. 
But the time of vigorous ballad literature was near at 
hand, and its favorite subjects were being furnished by 
passing events. This 
reign of Henry II. and the 
next were the time in 
which the delightful out- 
law Robin Hood (delight- 
ful, that is, as the Robin 
popular fancy Hood - 
pictured him), is supposed 
to have made merry with 
his men in the greenwood 
of Sherwood Forest, then 
covering a large part of 
Nottinghamshire. Not- 
withstanding the hard la- 
bors of King Henry, his 

judges and his officers, much disorder and oppression 
still prevailed, and a man might take to Robin Hood's 
lawless life with more excuse than could be found in 
later days. 

55. Richard Cceur de Lion and his Crusade. 
Richard, the rebellious son, succeeded his broken-hearted 
father in all the dominions of the Angevin house, from 
Britain to the Pyrenees. Romance, looking at nothing 




A MEDIEVAL AUTHOR AT WORK, 
FROM AN* OLD MS. 



122 



THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. 



[1189 




HOOD OF CHAIN MAIL 
TWELFTH CENTURY. 



but the glitter of his armor and the flash of his sword, 
has chosen to make him the most heroic and splendid 
figure among English kings. It is an 
eminence that he does not deserve. 
As a warrior he shone ; as a king he 
was bad ; as a man he was not to be 
admired. He was bold, energetic, in- 
different to human suffering, full of a 
restless delight in rude adventure. 
He merited the name that was given 
him, of the Lion-hearted (Coeur de 
Lion), and he gave some shining ex- 
amples of the kind of showy generosity which was the 
one admired virtue in the " chivalry " of his day. But 
his selfishness was supreme, his rapacity unmeasured, 
his idea of government nothing but the power to do with 
a country what he pleased and to take from it what he 
desired. 

The expected adventures of the Crusade which he had 
promised to join filled all Richard's thoughts when he 
received the English crown, and he be- 
gan at once to raise money for it by 
every fair and foul means. Besides the 
ordinary measures of the exchequer, he 
resorted to a shameless sale of every- 
thing on which he could lay his hands. 
He sold the offices in his gift — even 
those of the justiciar and the chancellor. 
He sold to the King of Scotland a re- 
lease from his obligation of fealty to the 
English crown. He sold charters and 
privileges to numerous towns, and so conferred a great 
benefit on England without intention or thought. Then, 
having sold every marketable appurtenance of his sov- 




CYLINDRICAL HEL- 
MET, WITH CLOSE 
VISOR, TWELFTH 
CENTURY. 



11S9-1192] UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. 



123 



ereignty, he did, perhaps, the best thing he could do for 
his kingdom, by departing for the Holy Land, with a 
brilliant following, and in company with 
Philip Augustus, the King of France. 

He left England late in 11 89; but it was 
the spring of 1191 before he sailed from 
Sicily for Palestine, and he had quarrelled 
with Philip already. Of his exploits in the 
war with Saladin we have no space to tell 
the story. It must suffice to say 

11 11 r 1 /— Tlie war 

that he was the hero of the Cru- with 
sade, and that it would not have 
failed, as it did, to recover Jerusalem, if he 
could have roused emulation among his col- 
leagues instead of offending their pride. In 
1 192, hearing ill news from home, he arranged 
a truce with Saladin, which left the Chris- 
tians in possession of Acre and other places 
they had taken, with the privilege of mak- 
ing pilgrimages to the sacred city and its 
shrines. 

He then set sail for home, but was 
wrecked in the Adriatic and forced to land. He dared 
not travel openly through the country of the Germans, 
nor through that of the French, having quarrelled fiercely 
with both. Attempting to make his way in disguise 
across Austrian territory, he was recognized 
and seized by the archduke, who delivered him of King 
to the Emperor, Henry VI. That prince held 
him imprisoned for more than a year, demanding an enor- 
mous ransom for his release. 

56. The End of Richard's Reign. When news 
came of Richard's captivity, his brother John began plot- 
ting to prevent his release and to obtain his crown ; but 



RICHARD I. 

Effigy in the ab- 
bey church at 
Fontevrault. 



124 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1194-1199 

England seems to have known enough of John to prefer 
Richard at any cost, and the heavy ransom was paid. 
John conspired with Philip Augustus of France, and 
attempted in vain the beginning of a civil war. Even 
before the king's return, in March, 1194, his treacherous 
brother's plots had come to naught. 

But Richard had no gratitude to show for the sacrifice 
by which his English subjects had set him free. He 
came back to squeeze their purses still more, remaining 
barely two months in the kingdom, again holding an 
open market for the sale of offices, privileges, crown 
lands, and church lands, while he planned new taxes and 
gathered in fines. Then he went to France, where he 
was busy in wars until the end of his life, and England 
saw him no more. The influences working in France 
were making it more difficult for an Angevin-English 
king to maintain his rule over Normandy and Anjou. 
Richard did succeed in reestablishing his au- 

Richard's . . . , , 

wars in thonty on the continent ; but the money-cost 
of his wars was heavy, and England paid the 
larger part. His demands were incessant, and the sums 
raised for him enormous, in proportion to the moderate 
wealth of that age. But the more the king asked from 
the people the more concessions he had to make to 
them, and they were gaining in popular rights and powers 
what proved to be worth far more than the cost in gold. 
Richard's ^ n tne s P r i n g °f l T 99> King Richard received 
death. a woun( j j while besieging a castle in Limoges, 
which caused his death. 

The justiciar who governed England from 1194 
until 1 198 was Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, — a statesman who did well for the people in 
many things, while he was faithful at the same time to 
the king. He developed the jury system which Henry 



H94-H99] UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. 125 

II. had made important, and, says Bishop Stubbs, "he 
tried and did much to train the people to Hubert 
habits of self-government. He taught them ^a 61 ^ 
how to assess their taxes by jury, to elect the ernment 
grand jury for the assizes of the judges, to choose repre- 
sentative knights to transact legal and judicial works ; 
such representative knights as at a later time made 
convenient precedents for parliamentary representation. 
The whole working of elective and representative insti- 
tutions gained greatly under his management — he edu- 
cated the people against the better time to come." 1 So 
England could well afford to pay large sums to King 
Richard while he stayed away from his kingdom, where 
he spent but seven months of his ten years' reign. 

57. Rise of the Towns. The towns, as we have seen, 
took advantage of the king's demands for money to buy 
charters and grants of privilege. They were steadily 
growing in strength and influence, multiplying their 
industries, enlarging their trade, and obtaining more 
independence in the management of their affairs. One 
by one they were obtaining the right to pay their taxes 
in a fixed yearly sum, assessed and collected by them- 
selves, and, one by one, they were getting rid of the 
various rights of lordship that had been exercised over 
them, and acquiring courts and officials of their own. 

What is called "municipal incorporation," making a 
town or city one distinct political body in its local gov- 
ernment, had not yet been brought about. The various 
matters of local government were more or less divided 
up. Gilds, which resembled the clubs and fra- 

, . . . . . , Gilds. 

ternal societies of modern times, played a part 
in the management of town affairs that is not very 
clearly understood. The oldest of great importance 
1 Stubbs, The Early Platitagenets, ch. vi. 



126 THE NORMAN-ENGLISH NATION. [1189-1199 

were the frith-gilds, or peace-clubs, organized for the 
protection of their members and for the pursuit of 
criminals, thus supplying a kind of volunteer police. 
Though suppressed by jealous feudalism on the conti- 
nent, the frith-gilds had been encouraged in England 
from an early time. Craft-gilds, formed among the 
workmen of different trades, were also of ancient origin. 
The most influential of the gilds, that of the merchants, 
which held and monopolized the privileges of trade, of 
town markets and fairs, as they were granted from time 
to time by the king, is not known to have existed before 
the Norman Conquest in English towns. 

One of the signs of an increasing business activity in 
England was seen in the importance to which the Jews 
had risen as lenders of money. A mistaken notion in 
the early church had branded the taking of even the 
smallest interest (usury) for money loaned as a sin, and 
the law had made it a crime. At the same time, Chris- 
tian hatred of the Jews drove that unfortunate 
people from nearly all reputable employments, 
and forced them to adopt in general the occupations 
which Christians shunned. This, perhaps, more than 
any other cause, made the Jews in the Middle Ages 
the money-lenders — the bankers — of Europe. They 
were always at the mercy of the kings, who protected 
them in their unlawful business when it suited them to 
do so, and who wrung their gains from them with little 
scruple when they saw fit. 

The first Jews in England are thought to have come 

from Normandy with the Conqueror. In the reign of 

Henry II. their settlements had grown numer- 

PsrsGCU.- 

tionofthe ous and large. In 1 190, after Richard s coro- 
nation, a ferocious outbreak of popular hatred 
occurred in many cities, and great numbers of Jews were 



1190-1199] UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. 127 

massacred with brutality. At York, being besieged in 
the castle tower, they fired it and destroyed themselves, 
with their wives and children, rather than fall into the 
hands of their enemies. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

48. England the Chief State in the Angevin Kingdom. 
Topics. 

1. Early relations of England to the Continent. 

2. Possessions of Henry II. on the Continent. 

3. England's gain through the dignity of its king. 
Reference. — Green, Henry II., ch. ii. 

49. Restoration of Order by Henry II. 
Topics. 

1. Henry's characteristics and his early reforms. 

2. The king in France in the interests of his wife. 

3. The practice of scutage and its results. 

References. — Green, Henry II., chs. iii., iv. Scutage: Gardi- 
ner, i. 141, 142 ; Bright, i. 91, 93, 109, 113; Green, 109; Stubbs, 
E. P., 56, 57; Montague, 41, 42; Ransome, 53; H. Taylor, i. 
283, 284. 

Research Questions. — (1.) By destroying the castles Henry 
showed himself in accord with whose policy ? (2.) As duke of 
French fiefs did he yield to the French kings what he demanded 
of his barons ? (3.) Why was " scutage " a blow to feudalism ? 
(4.) What nations of the present day compel all their young men 
to serve in the army ? (5.) In what war did mercenaries serve in 
our country ? (6.) Distinguish between militia and the regular 
army. (7.) What is the disadvantage of fighting with mercena- 



ries 



50. The King's Conflict with Thomas Becket. 
Topics. 

1. Becket's first office and his early character. 

2. Change when he was made Archbishop of Canterbury. 

3. Exemption of the clergy. 

4. The Constitutions of Clarendon and Becket's opposition. 



128 THE UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. 

5. His flight, return, and death. 

6. Action of the pope. 

References. — Constitutions of Clarendon : Gardiner, i. 143-145 : 
Green, 107; Montague, 44, 45 ; 'Ransome, 48, 49; Green, Henry 
II., ch. v. ; Stubbs, C. H., i. 464-466 : Taswell-Langmead, 91-94; 
H. Taylor, i. 287, 288 ; Stubbs, E. P., 76, 77. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Why is the state better fitted to 
deal with criminals than the church? (2.) Why was it to the 

-pope's interest to declare Becket a martyr? (3.) What effect 
does persecution usually have upon a belief? (4.) Why were the 
people apt to side with the clergy ? 

51. Beginning of the English Conquest of Ireland. 
Topics. 

1. Condition of Ireland resulting from Danish invasion. 

2. The four Irish kingdoms. 

3. Henry's conquest of Ireland and reasons for the same. 

4. The " English Pale." 

References. — Green, Henry II., ch. viii. ; Colby, 53-56. 

52. The Troubled Ending of Henry's Reign. 
Topics. 

1. Absolution of the king and his reparation. 

2. Troubles with his sons. 

3. The fall of Jerusalem and the new crusade. 

4. The revolt in Aquitaine and death of Henry. 
Reference. — Green, Henry II., ch. xi. 

53. The Legal Reforms of Henry II. 
Topics. 

1. Administration of justice before the time of Henry II. 

2. Changes in the king's court and the result. 

3. The trial by jury : a, origin and first important use in Eng- 

land ; b, use by Henry to displace trial by combat and ordeals ; 
c, its political importance. 

4. Strengthening of the Fyrd. 

References. — Legal reforms of Henry II.: Gardiner, i. 146- 
148; Bright, i. 106-108; Green, 109-111; Green, Henry II., 
chs. iv., v., and vi. ; Stubbs, E. P., 52-55 ; Montague, 4 2 -5° 5 
Ransome, 50-54; Stubbs, C. H., i. 469-495, 608-611 ; Taswell- 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 129 

Langmead, 87-90, 158-190; Traill, i. 280-298; Pollock and 
Maitland, i. book i. ch. v. ; H. Taylor, i. 308-31 1. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What were "compurgators," "trial 
by combat,'' and " trial by ordeal "? (Gardiner, i. 32.) (2.) Were 
any of these methods ever employed in America ? (3.) How 
were recognitors forerunners of the jury? (Gardiner, i. 147.) 
(4.) What is the present meaning of the term " inquest " ? 

54. Literature. 
Topics. 

1. The study of the law. 

2. Walter Map and his work. 

3. Condition of literature. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 167; Traill, i. 351-354. King Arthur : 
Morley, English Writers, iii. ch. vi.; Bulfinch, Age of Chivalry; 
Church, Heroes of Chivalry ; Lanier, Boys' King Arthur. 

55. Richard Cceur de Lion and his Crusade. 
Topics. 

1. Richard's character in romance and in real life. 

2. His measures for raising money. 

3. His departure for the Holy Land. 

4. His attempted return and imprisonment. 
References. — Stubbs, E. P., 1 10-124; Colby, 68-70. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What novel of Scott describes the 

romantic side of Richard's character? (2.) What one tells of 
his crusade? (3.) Why is it a bad thing to have the offices 
of government put up for sale ? 

56. The End of Richard's Reign. 
Topics. 

1. John's plots. 

2. Richard's return and his departure for France. 

3. His demands for money. 

4. His death. 

5. The work of Richard's justiciar : a, on the jury system ; b, in 

the assessment of taxes; c, in choosing representatives for 

legal work. 
Reference. — Stubbs, E. P., 124-136. 

Research Questions. — (t.) How is a grand jury chosen and 
made up ? (2.) What are its duties ? 



130 THE UPBUILDING OF ENGLISH LAW. 

57. Rise of the Towns. 
Topics. 

i. Their gains: a, in charters and grants of privileges; b, in 
industries and trades ; c, in freedom from rights of lordship. 

2. Gilds. 

3. Jews and money-lending. 

4. The massacre of York. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 168-170 ; Colby, 70, 71 ; Gibbins, 22- 

39- 



LINEAGE OF THE ANGEVIN, OR EARLY PLANTAGENET, 
KINGS OF ENGLAND. 

Henry, 
died 1 183. 



Matilda, 

daughter of 

Henry I., 

married 

Geoffrey, 

(Plantagenet), 

Count of A iijou. 



I Henry II., 

1 151 
■{ married 
Eleanor 

( of A<]ititiiine. 



Richard I., 

(Coeur dc Lion), 

1189-1199. 

Geoffrey, 

married 

Duchess of Brittany. 

Died 11S5. 

John, 

1199-1216. 

married 

Isabella 

of A7igouleme. 



Arthur, 

of Brittany, 

murdered 

1203. 



Henry III. 
1216-1272. 



SURVEY OF GENERAL HISTORY. 

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 

Importance of the Period. The period covered, in English 
events, by the following chapter, was one of remarkable im- 
portance in all parts of the world. Europe seems to have 
been nearer, in some respects, when the thirteenth century- 
closed, to the great change from its mediaeval to its modern 
state, than it was after another hundred years had passed. 
Feudalism was giving way ; nations were being knitted to- 
gether • a middle class among the people was making itself 
felt ; inquisitive thought was being stirred ; commercial enter- 
prise was growing more attractive to the adventurous and the 
bold. 

Papal Poiuer. This was the age in which the popes were 
most powerful, and were most nearly raised to supremacy, as 
feudal lords, over all Christian kings. They triumphed in 
their last long conflict with the emperors, and the " Holy 
Roman Empire," as it had come to be named, was nearly 
extinguished for a time by the consequences of the strife. 
But, before the century ended, the decline of the papacy from 
that great height of power was begun. 

Italy. In Italy the growth of independent cities, as busy 
centres of manufacturing and trade, went prosperously on. 
Some, like Florence, were fully democratic republics ; in 
others, like Venice, a small oligarchy ruled ; others had fallen 
under military masters, and what is known as the " age of the 
despots " in Italy was coming in. Venice and Genoa were 
fiercely at war, as competitors in the Mediterranean trade. 
Traffic between the Mediterranean and the western coasts 
of Europe was still carried on for the most part by land. 



132 GENERAL HISTORY. 

Apparently few voyages by the ocean circuit, through the 
straits of Gibraltar, had been undertaken when the thirteenth 
century closed. 

Germany and the Hanse Towns. For Germany, the tale 
would be melancholy were it not for the free cities, which 
had developed a vigorous life of their own. Otherwise the 
country, where one of the strongest of nations ought then to 
•have been growing up, could hardly have been in a worse 
state of political wreck. Towards the end of the century, 
however, the German and imperial crowns came into the 
possession of a family (that of the Hapsburgs, the archducal 
House of Austria) which afterwards raised itself, by fortunate 
marriages, to great rank and power, and gave a borrowed 
dignity to the titles it bore. 

But nothing else in German affairs is so important and 
interesting as the remarkable plan of commercial confeder- 
ation which the free cities of that country were carrying out, 
with amazing and instructive success. Compelled by the dis- 
orders of the time, and by the absence of any international 
law, the cities organized leagues amongst themselves, for 
common defence of their trade, for the adoption of maritime 
codes, and for securing privileges of trade in different lands. 
The largest and most powerful, but not the earliest, of these 
leagues had its rise in the north. It came to be known as 
the League of the Hanse Towns, or the Hanseatic League, 
from one of several meanings of the word " hanse," in which 
it signifies association or gild. At its greatest extent, the 
league embraced eighty cities or more, distributed from Flan- 
ders to Russia, and it consolidated a power that was probably 
greater than that of any single nation of the time. In Lon- 
don and other important cities, it was represented by great 
settlements (" Hanses ") strictly governed by laws of its own. 
It gave a lesson in organization which was probably the most 
civilizing influence of the age. 

77/i? Netherlands. The Netherland country was becoming 
a busy industrial hive. At the south, among the Flemings, 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 133 

there was skilful weaving, dyeing, tanning, and working in 
leather and metal ; at the north, the Dutch were weavers, too, 
and they were makers of good pottery ; but principally they 
were herring- fishers, and sailors, and builders of ships. Eng- 
land furnished the main supply of wool and other raw mate- 
rials which the skilful Netherlanders worked up. 

Bruges was at this time the great distributing point for 
commodities exchanged between the east and south, on one 
hand, and the Baltic, the Netherlands, and England, on the 
other. 

France. France, unlike Germany, was outgrowing the cha- 
otic feudal state. A crafty and able king, Philip Augustus, 
began, in the first years of the century, to get possession of 
great fiefs, by wresting Normandy, Maine, and Anjou from 
the English king, John, as will presently be described. An- 
other king, St. Louis (Louis IX.), strengthened the French 
throne by the justice he administered, by the courts he estab- 
lished, and the peace he gave the kingdom. 

Spain. The struggle in Spain, between Christians and 
Moors, passed its crisis in this century. The Moors were 
driven into the extreme south, where they founded their last 
kingdom, of Granada, to hold it for two centuries more. The 
small Christian kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and 
Portugal, were kept generally, but not always, at peace with 
each other by their common warfare with the Moors. In both 
Castile and Aragon there were popular institutions taking 
form, which seemed to be nearly as promising as those that 
the English people were building up. Many towns were re- 
presented in the Cortes, — the national parliament or court, 
— but they were never joined there, as in England, with a 
class of untitled landowners from the country districts, to 
form a strong " Commons," or " Third Estate." 

The End of the Crusades. Crusading expeditions for the 
recovery of the Holy Sepulchre came to an end in this cen- 
tury. Jerusalem was finally abandoned to the enemies of the 
cross, after the Emperor Frederick II., St. Louis of France, 



134 GENERAL HISTORY. 

and Edward I. of England, had each vainly tried to loosen 
the iron grasp of the Turk. 

The Eastern Empire. A movement of pretended crusad- 
ing, in the third year of the century, was diverted to the con- 
quest of Constantinople, by Venetian intrigue. The Eastern 
Empire (Greek or Byzantine, as we choose to name it) was 
then broken up, and most of its territory was divided amongst 
J;he conquerors. In one Asiatic fragment, however, a family 
of Greek princes set up their throne and patiently bided their 
time, until they were strong enough, in 1261, to recapture Con- 
stantinople and resume a feeble sovereignty, which claimed 
descent from the Roman Empire in the east. 

Learning, Literature, and Art. Italy was now preparing 
for a great lead in the wakening of Europe to new desires for 
knowledge, new inspirations in literature, new conceptions of 
art. Italian schools and universities were being multiplied, 
letters eagerly cultivated, painting and sculpture revived, 
while Dante, the greatest of mediaeval poets, was being edu- 
cated in the stormy life of democratic Florence for his im- 
mortal song. Elsewhere the artistic and thoughtful expres- 
sion of the time was in its wonderful architectural works. It 
was, for architecture, the Augustan age. " All Europe," says 
Sir Gilbert Scott, "became filled with productions of the 
newly generated art ; every city became a repertory of noble 
and sublime architecture, and every town and village became 
possessed of productions equally beautiful, if more modest in 
their pretensions ; while the intervening country was studded 
over with castles and monastic establishments, in which the 
same majestic art displayed itself in ever varying forms." 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 
1199-1450. 



CHAPTER VII. 

the rise of the english commons. 

Angevin and Later Plantagenet Kings : John. — Henry 
III. — Edward I. 1 199-1307. 

58. King John. — His Loss of Normandy and the 
Angevin Fiefs. King Richard died childless, and the 
rule of hereditary descent would have given his crown, 
not to his surviving brother, John, but to Arthur, a 
young son left by his older brother, Geoffrey, Duke of 
Brittany. But Arthur was a boy of twelve years, and 
the English Great Council preferred and elected John, 
though regarding him with dislike and distrust. Nor- 
mandy did the same, while in other parts of the Angevin 
dominions Arthur was upheld as Richard's heir, 

Murder of 

and supported by his overlord, the French king. Prince 
In the war that followed, Arthur was taken pris- 
oner by John, and is supposed to have been put to death 
(1203). According to some reports at the time, the un- 
fortunate boy was murdered by his uncle's own hands. 

Philip of France, as overlord, or suzerain, of Brittany, 
Normandy, and the Angevin fiefs, summoned John to 
make answer for the murder before the court of the 
peers of France, and judgment was pronounced against 
him when he refused to appear. He was declared to 



136 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1203-1205 



have forfeited his fiefs, and before the end of the year 
1204 Philip had taken possession of all but Aquitaine, a 
part of Poitou, and those Norman islands on the French 
coast called the Channel Islands, which have never 
Dissolution ceased to be under English rule. The great 
Angevin Angevin dominion was dissolved, and England 
dominion. was practically once more a kingdom distinct 
and apart. Norman families that had held estates in 
each country were now forced to choose between Eng- 
land and France. Those who stayed 
in the island became wholly English ; 
those who quitted it had no longer any 
voice in English affairs. The new 
Norman-English nation had now been 
fully formed. 

59. King John's Quarrel with the 
Church. Henry II. had raised the 
royal authority to a supremacy in the 
kingdom which was dangerous when it 
came to be vested in so bad a man 
as John. The power of the barons 
had been waning, while that of the 
king increased, and, though the " com- 
mons" — the general body of English 
freemen - — had gained weight and 
strength, they had no ability yet to 
act for themselves, but were gener- 
ally led by the clergy in such political 
action as they took. If John had not 
quarrelled with the church, he might have played the 
tyrant with success. But, fortunately, he was so foolish 
as to engage himself in a contest that arrayed against 
him the whole enormous influence of the church, from 
that of the pope to that of the humblest priest. 




JOHN. 
From liis monument in 
Worcester Cathedral. 



1205-1213] RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 137 

The conflict grew out of the election of a successor to 
Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 
1205. Appeals to the pope (Innocent III.) resulted in 
the primacy being given to a very noble man, Stephen 
Langton, an English cardinal, of famous learn- ste p hen 
ing and exalted purity of life. A better choice Lan eton. 
was rarely made, nor one happier for England ; but John 
seized the property of the archbishopric, and refused to 
permit Langton to enter his see. For six years the king 
defied papal authority and awed his own rebellious sub- 
jects, with a fierce energy and an obstinate courage that 
would command respect if they had been shown in a 
worthy cause. Pope Innocent placed the kingdom under 
interdict, which stopped every service of religion, even 
for the burial of the dead, and finally he decreed the 
deposition of John, commissioning the King of France to 
expel him from his throne. 

Against all this John held out ; but his courage had 
no moral support, and is supposed to have been broken 
down at last by a vagrant prophet, who predicted that 
his reign would end on the next Ascension Day. When 
he did make submission to the pope it was abjectly done. 
He gave up everything, even his kingdom, receiving it 
back as a fief of the Roman See, doing: homage 

Vassalage 

and paying tribute as a vassal to the pope. He to the 
promised everything, including a promise to re- P ° pe ' 
store to the church what he had seized while the quarrel 
went on ; and proceedings connected with that restitution 
gave rise to the first great united movement of the 
English people for asserting and defining their rights, in 
each class, under the crown. 

60. Magna Carta. In August, 12 13, the justiciar of 
the kingdom, Geoffrey Fitz Peter, Earl of Essex, sum- 
moned an assembly at St. Albans to settle the claims of 



138 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1213-1214 

the bishoprics against the king. It was called a council, 
but its purpose gave it the character of a national jury, 
and that is probably the reason why the representative 
principle, long used in forming local juries, was intro- 
duced in making it up. Not only bishops and 
national barons, but the reeve and four chosen men from 
ative each township on the royal domain, were sum- 

(ISSGIllblV 

moned to attend. For the first time, in fact, 
so far as can be known, elected representatives of the 
English common people came into a national assembly, 
to sit in council with prelates and lords. 

That such a meeting could be held without discussing 
the grievances of commons and barons, as well as those 
of the heads of the church, can hardly have been sup- 
posed. The justiciar must have expected it to go beyond 
the single subject it was called to consider ; for he is 

said to have agreed with the council that the 

Demand ° 

for the charter and laws of Henry I. — much tram- 
lawsof pled on in recent reigns — should be revived 
and put in force. Henry's charter was accord- 
ingly laid before John, as a summary of demanded re- 
forms ; but Fitz Peter died suddenly, and the king did 
nothing, except to show his contempt for English feeling 
by appointing an odious Frenchman, Peter des Roches, 
to be justiciar in Geoffrey's place. 

At this time John was in league with several princes 
on the continent against Philip of France, and early in 
1214 he went to join them in defending the Count of 
Flanders, whom Philip had attacked. On the 12th of 
Result of August, in that year, the allies fought Philip's 
t^battie army at Bouvines, in Flanders, and suffered a 
vines. disastrous defeat. The battle had many remark- 

able consequences, and not the least among them was the 
discomfiture of King John. He lost at Bouvines the 



1214-1215] RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 1 39 

power to keep his subjects in fear, and when he came 
back to England he found them banded, not in secret 
conspiracies, but in an open league, to extort from him 
the demanded charter of liberty and law. 

They had found a great leader in Stephen Langton, 
the archbishop, now beginning to show his character as 
a true Englishman, a fearless patriot, a wise statesman, 
partisan of no order or class. Behind the barons were 
commons and clergy, not armed, but animated with one 
resolve. The nation was practically in revolt ; the king 
was nearly alone. He tried every device of low cunning 
to waste time, and to break the firm array that The 
pressed against him ; but all was vain. In of^ ph 
April, 121 5, the northern barons, wearied of his barons - 
tricks, assembled their forces ; in May they had formally 




PRESENT VIEW OF RUNNYMEDE. 



renounced their allegiance and were marching to the 
south. London opened its gates to them with joy ; 
most of the very court and household of the king at 



140 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 



[1215 



Oxford deserted him as the army approached. A small 
company of attendants was with him finally when he 
came out to make helpless submission, at Runnymede, 
on the Thames, between Windsor and Staines, on the 
15th of June. 
The Great Charter (Magna Carta) signed on that 



^ %J^ry^r^k J^Tj^lL 








utiMl* riMM iB^Sefrw&nee tp ewv ^mirmtp tarn, ^mu^Jt/k- 

FACSIMILE EXTRACT FROM MAGNA CARTA. 



9 



memorable clay is described by Bishop Stubbs as being 
"a treaty of peace between the king and his people." 
Twenty-five barons (the Mayor of London being counted 
as one of them) were nominated to compel the king to 
fulfil his part. It was not a selfish attempt on the part 
of the barons and bishops to secure their own privileges ; 
" it provided that the commons of the realm should have 
the benefit of every advantage which the two elder es- 
tates had won for themselves, and it bound the barons 
to treat their own dependents as it bound the king to 
treat the barons. Of its sixty-three articles 

Provisions . , , , 1 r i 

of Magna some provided securities for personal freedom ; 
no man was to be taken, imprisoned, or dam- 
aged in person or estate, but by the judgment of his 
peers and by the law of the land. Others fixed the rate 



i2i 5 ] RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS 141 

of payments due by the vassal to his lord. Others pre- 
sented rules for national taxation and for the organiza- 
tion of a national council, without the consent of which 
the king could not tax. Others decreed the banishment 
of the alien servants of John. Although it is not the 
foundation of English liberty, it is the first, the clearest, 
the most united, and historically the most important of 
all the great enunciations of it." : 

A German historian of the English constitution has 
remarked that the people of nearly every country in 
Europe have had at some time a Magna Carta, The dig 
or similar catalogue of grievances, with promises *i. nc * ion ,? f i. 

& ° * the English 

from their rulers of redress. The difference in Magna 

Carta. 

the case of the English was that they did 
not forget their charter, nor suffer it to be forgotten, but 
kept it in force by repeated confirmations from succes- 
sive kings. " Before the close of the Middle Ages this 
confirmation had been thirty-eight times demanded and 
granted." 2 

61. The Final Struggle with King John. The 
signing of the Great Charter was not the end of the 
struggle of the English people with King John. He was 
now to receive his reward for becoming the vassal of the 
pope. His cause was taken up at Rome ; the Charter 
was annulled by papal decree, and the king was absolved 
from the obligations to which he had sworn. Backed by 
this great authority, John turned on his subjects to crush 
them with hired soldiers from abroad. At first he had 
alarming success, and the party of the barons was badly 
broken and dismayed. Some of them took a foolish and 
wicked course, inviting Louis, the son of King Philip of 
France, to come and accept the English crown. 

1 Stubbs, The Early Plantagenets. 

2 Gneist, History of tlie English Constitution^ i. 311. 



142 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 



[1216 



Death of 
King John. 



Louis entered England with a considerable force of 
men, and all was favorable for a time to his 
hopes. But suddenly John fell ill, while lead- 
ing his army from Lincoln toward the south, and died at 
Newark, in October, 12 16. His death ended most of the 
feeling that had encouraged an invading French prince, 
and John's son, a child of ten years, was accepted by the 



la acre W Tuuof A kt eft cjef fcfltgtetc 
oxurivj* Vi Trcnaej JeflJaintaL eit^fetene 
lafuu&a. CfapeMta troie fatmuefc 
,tac w J U ^H 



iKlUC^tSjTHfe. 



-punt 



f 1 "* 



I 



U-t^hfefeipol 



X 



LONDON EARLY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 
From a drawing by Matthew Paris. 



nation in general as its rightful king. Some of the 
barons stood by Louis, who held his ground in England 
for nearly a year ; but in the end he made terms and 
received a payment of money for returning to France. 

62. The Beginnings of the Reign of Henry III. 
The child-king, Henry III., was solemnly crowned (Oc- 
tober, 1 2 16), and during most of his minority the country 



1216-1258] RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 



143 



was governed well ; but he came of age in 1227, and the 
action of his ministers was then no longer free. They 
were subject to the commands of a king who proved to be 
wilful, weak, vain, and false ; who was controlled by for- 
eign favorites, and, like his father, a submissive vassal of 
the pope. His extravagance knew no bounds, and his 
exactions of money could not be controlled. Again and 
again he was forced to make promises which Papal 
he would not keep. Side by side with the exaction s- 
king's extortions were others from Rome. It was a 
saying of the time that the king and the pope were the 
upper and nether millstones between which the Eng- 
lish people were ground. 
In jealous vanity, Henry 
undertook, at last, to be 
his own minister, direct- 
ing everything in the 
government through ir- 
responsible clerks. 

63. Simon de Mont- 
fort and the Provisions 
of Oxford. For thirty 
years England seems to 
have waited for a fit lead- 
er of the people against 
this exasperating king. 
Strangely enough, when 
the leader appeared, he 
came out of the hated 

class of French-born lords. Simon de Montfort, however, 
had the blood of an English grandmother in his veins, 
and was Earl of Leicester by rights derived from her. 
He had married the king's sister, made England his 
home, and was faithful to it through all his life. 




HENRY III. 
From his tomb in Westminster Abbey. 



144 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1258 

Affairs in the kingdom came to a crisis in 1258. The 
reckless extravagance of Henry had overwhelmed him 
with debts ; there was a grievous famine in the country 
and a troublesome war with the Welsh ; yet the silly 
king had agreed with the pope to undertake a conquest 
of the kingdom of Sicily and Naples for his second son, 
Edmund, and had pledged a great sum of money to de- 
fray the cost. He called a Parliament, to lay 

the Par- 

nament before it his needs, and to make the usual pro- 
mises, which he did not mean to keep. It was 
still the old national council, of barons and prelates, not 
yet broadened out, but it had borrowed a new name of 
late, and was beginning to be called a " Parliament," 1 
after the manner of the French. It came together in a 
stern and angry mood, and, led by Simon de Montfort, 
it took action which created four standing councils, to 
control the government and to carry out certain reforms. 
Practically, a new constitution of government was 
framed, in enactments called the Provisions of Oxford ; 
but the scheme was not one that could satisfy the Eng- 
lish people. It had simply put a body of the greater 
barons into power, and many of them wished to carry 
reform no farther than their own interests required. A 
strong party, however, stood out for broad pop- 
sions of ular rights, and Earl Simon was its chief. Ed- 
ward, too, the king's elder son, — destined in 
his future career to take rank with the greatest of Eng- 
lish kings, — gave that party his support. He was not 
yet of age, but he saw the folly, if not the iniquity, of 
his father's course, and could recognize the growth of a 
power in the state, behind that of kings and lords, with 
which lords and kings must learn to make terms. 

1 Signifying a meeting or assembly for speech, for discussion, 
being derived from the French word purler, to speak. 



1259-1264] RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 



145 



64. The Barons' War. The Provisions of Oxford 
were followed by another series of ordinances, called the 
Provisions of Westminster, which seem to have had little 
result. Everything was darkened by dissensions and 
intrigues, the causes of which are obscure. The king 
made the most of the confu- 
sion, dividing his opponents, 
and obtaining release by pa- 
pal authority from his oaths. 
His faithless scheming was 
disapproved by Edward ; but 
when, in 1263, hostilities be- 
tween the parties broke out, 
the prince took his father's 
side. At that time little fight- 
ing occurred except on the 
border of Wales. 

The end of this outbreak 
was an agreement to refer 
the whole dispute between 
King Henry and his sub- 
jects to Louis IX., — Saint 
Louis, — the revered King of 

France ; but when Louis, who was used to absolute gov- 
ernment and unacquainted with the state of things in 
England, decided in Henry's favor, Montfort and his 
party refused to submit. In the war that followed, Ed- 
ward, not his father, was the head of the royalist cause. 
The first campaign was brief. It began in March and 
ended on the 14th of May, 1264, at Lewes, Battleof 
where the king's army was beaten so decisively Lewes - 
that the king and his chief supporters fell into Leices- 
ter's hands. The victors then dictated their own terms, 
and Edward became a hostage, held in pledge. 




LOUIS IX. OF FRANCE. 

Painted on glass in the Cathedral of 
Chartres. 



146 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1264^-1265 

65. The Birth of a Representative Parliament. A 

Parliament was called together to devise some new 
scheme of government, and the writs for it summoned 
four knights to be chosen from each shire to meet with 
the prelates and lords. It was the first important occa- 
sion in English history on which even the gentry of the 
kingdom had sent elected representatives to a 
Parliament great council for dealing with national affairs 

of 1264. ° ° 

at large. In 1254, when Henry was absent in 
France, there had been a council called, which included 
two knights from each shire, but it did no important 
work ; and there had been the council of inquest men- 
tioned above (see section 60) ; but those were only steps 
leading up to the representation of the commons in Par- 
liament, which really dates from this assembly of 1264. 
Even yet, it was landownership alone that was repre- 
sented ; the towns had no voice. 

By the action of this Parliament of 1 264, the king was 
placed under the control of nine councillors, three of 
whom, with Simon de Montfort at their head, had the 
management of affairs. For a year England was gov- 
erned by these three. It was in that year that Simon de 
Montfort took the great step which made him the actual 
creator of the representative Commons of England. He 
Simon de caused the king to issue writs for a Parliament, 

Pa rS- 0rt ' 8 that met on the 2 ° th of J anuarv > I26 5> t0 which 
ment. tw0 representatives from each city and bor- 

ough were summoned, as well as two knights from each 
shire. Thus was rounded out the representative consti- 
tution of the English Parliament ; and thus, at last, the 
principle of representation and the practice of election 
were carried to their final use. For thirty years after 
the Parliament of 1265 there was no other so complete ; 
but a model of representation had been shaped. 



«65] 



RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 



147 



The famous Parliament of Simon de Montfort, as it is 
known, sat through more than two months, but did no 
memorable work. Quarrels in the government were 
brewing between Earl Simon and others. There was 
jealousy, no doubt, of his power; and it is not certain 
that he was guilt- 
less of working to 
some extent for 
personal ends. His 
sons made ene- 
mies, and were evi- 
dently bad men. 
Thus different 

causes were rais- 
ing up a formida- 
ble party of mal- 
contents, and Ed- 
ward, escaping 
from his custodi- 
ans, became its 
head. Both sides 
soon had armies in 
the field, and again 
the issue was set- 
tied in a brief cam- 
paign ; but this time it was Earl Simon and his cause 
that went down in defeat. At Evesham, near Battle of 
Worcester, on the 4th of August, 1265, the earl Evesham - 
was forced by Edward to an uneven battle, and fell, 
fighting hopelessly but desperately to the last. 

Apparently, when Simon de Montfort fell, all that he 
and his supporters had done went for naught. But Earl 
Simon had been a great teacher, and his lessons were left 
behind him. Into one mind, at least, they had sunk deep, 




148 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1265-7272 

and that was the mind of the coming king. Mainly 
Death of because of Edward's influence, the remaining 
Henry in. seven years of his father's reign were years of 
fairly reasonable government, and generally of peace ; 
though Edward was long absent, leading a crusade to 
the Holy Land in 1268, and he was still absent in 1272, 
when his father died. In his absence he was proclaimed 
king. 

66. Edward I. Edward I. was in the prime of man- 
hood when his reign began. In most qualities of char- 
acter he rose to the higher standards of the age. He 
realized, in fact, much more than had been promised in 
his early youth ; for dreadful tales of brutal temper and 
wanton cruelty were then told of the young prince. 
Those violent impulses remained in his blood, but gener- 
ally he had subdued them to the control of a clear mind 
and a determined will. The mind of Edward had much 
likeness to that of Henry II. As Henry was the pri- 
mary builder of the administrative machinery of English 
law, Edward was the first great legislator or formulator 
of law. 

67. The Model Parliament of Edward I. The reign 
of Edward I. is most distinguished by measures which 
gave the English Parliament its fixed form, casting it in 
the mould which Simon de Montfort had roughly shaped. 
Those measures came late in the reign, but it is proper 
to notice them now. For more than twenty years after 
Edward reached the throne the make-up of Parliament 
was governed by no settled rule. Sometimes knights of 
the shire were called ; sometimes they were not. Some- 
times knights, barons, and clergy were summoned to 
separate assemblies at different times. Only twice do 
town representatives appear to have been called. This 
indefinite constitution of Parliament might have con- 



i2 9 5] 



RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 



149 



tinued, perhaps, if increasing need of money had not 
forced the king to give heed to the growing wealth and 
weight in the nation of the traders and craftsmen of the 
towns. 

Edward came to the shrewd conclusion that if these 
thrifty burghers were taken into counsel, and were made 
responsible parties in the settlement of ques- 

. . x Represent- 

tions of taxation, they would open their purses ation of 
with more liberal and more willing hands. Be- Pariia- 
ing then, in 1295, hard pressed for money on 
account of a war with France, and in trouble with his 
barons and 

clergy at the 
same time, Ed- 
ward took up 
Simon de Mont- 
fort's idea, and 
called a Parlia- 
ment in which 
each city was 
represented by 
two citizens, 
each borough 
by two burgh- 
ers, each shire 
by two knights. 
As this was 
summoned with 
more regularity 

of form and circumstance than Earl Simon's, and was 
perfect in its three estates, it came to be looked upon 
as the "Model Parliament" in later times. 

68. The English "Commons" and "Lords." It 
must not be understood that the English townspeople 




GREAT SEAL OF EDWARD I. 



150 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1295 

had won an unexampled gain in political rights, when 
their representatives took seats in Parliament ; for the 
chief towns of Aragon and Castile had enjoyed the same 
right long before. The true advance beyond other coun- 
tries which England had made was in the parliamentary 
representation, not of the towns, but of the rural dis- 
tricts, — of the lesser landowners of the shires. In other 
countries, the townsfolk were the only people who made 
up the political class called the " Third Estate ; " 

Town and . A , . r 

country and their separateness in the possession of 
■MDom- political rights proved to be mainly the reason 
why those rights were generally lost. England 
was the one nation in which town and country became 
united in the Third Estate, or "the Commons," as the 
English named that unclassed mass of citizens who 
appeared by representatives in Parliament, and who 
gradually discovered themselves to be the substantial 
body of the nation. 

The election of representatives from the shires had 
another most important effect. It gave an official 
character to the English nobility, a character widely 
different from that of the nobility in any other country. 
After the Norman Conquest, all tenants-in-chief of the 
Formation king were held to be entitled to seats in the 
official Great Council, but the greater barons only, who 
nobmty. were specially summoned by royal letters, per- 
sonally addressed, were expected and required to attend. 
To the remaining crowd, the sheriff in each county gave 
a general notice, by the king's command. Those who 
received the personal summons came thereby to be 
marked off by a very distinct line from those who did 
not. They were marked as forming a body of " hered- 
itary counsellors of the crown," an official order of no- 
bles, who acquired no "nobility of blood," and whose 



1295-1297] RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 1 5 1 

descendants did not form a noble caste. For the parlia- 
mentary office has descended from generation to 
generation in but one main line of each baro- English 
nial family, conferring the nobility of the " peer- peerage ' 
age " as it passed ; while the branching families of younger 
sons have been thrown off from the ennobled stem, to 
become mixed with the lesser landlord class, — with the 
knights and the " gentlemen " of English society, — and 
to be counted and considered with them as part of the 
Commons or Third Estate. Instead of forming, as in 
many other countries, a mean and mischievous swarm 
of petty nobles, this minor aristocracy, the landlord 
"gentry," has often supplied a useful leadership to the 
English commons, and has often acted a directing part 
in the struggles through which the people have come 
into the possession of their rights. 

The representative form given by Edward I. to the 
Parliament of 1295 established a precedent Tw0 
which generally, though not always, prevailed Houses - 
in after years ; but the division of Parliament into two 
Houses, of the Lords (including the prelates) and the 
Commons, sitting separately, came at a later time. 

69. Edward's Confirmation of the Great Charter. 
The difficulties which caused Edward to summon the 
Model Parliament of 1295 led, in 1297, to another impor- 
tant result. The clergy, in obedience to a papal bull, 
were refusing to make him any grant from their reve- 
nues, and the barons were refusing to follow him, with 
their retainers, to France, with which country he had 
engaged in war. One of the concessions by which he 
ended these disputes was a formal confirmation or reis- 
sue of the Great Charter, and likewise of a Charter of 
Forests, which relaxed the oppressive forest laws of the 
Norman kings. This Confirmatio Cartarum, as it is 



152 THE DECLINE OF -FEUDALISM. [1282-1296 

known, had great constitutional importance, because it 
renewed the provision forbidding taxation without par- 
liamentary consent, which Henry III., in his confirma- 
tions of Magna Carta, had left out. Thenceforward that 
stood as a fundamental principle of the English consti- 
tution, often violated, but never given up. 

70. The Subjugation of Wales. Going back, now, to 
.review the more stirring but less important events of 

this remarkable reign, we find Edward engaged early in 
the conquest of Wales. Where all of his predecessors 
had failed, he achieved a substantial success. After his 
final campaign (1282-1284) the principality was annexed 
to the English crown ; but, in 1301, it was conferred on 
the king's eldest son and heir, who thus became the first 
in a long line of English Princes of Wales. 

71. The Scottish War of Independence. In 1290, the 
line of direct succession to the Scottish crown came to 
an end, and several claimants appeared, among them 
John Balliol and Robert Bruce. By agreement of all 
parties, King Edward of England was called in to settle 
the dispute, and when, in 1292, his decision gave the 
crown to Balliol, he received the homage of the new 
king. For a time there was peace; but Edward pre- 
sently put forward pretensions as overlord that were new 
and offensive to the Scots, and King John Balliol was 
forced by his subjects to enter into a secret alliance 
with the French. In his vigorous and merciless way, 
Edward made short work of the consequent war (1296), 
taking Berwick by storm and defeating the Scots with 
terrific slaughter at Dunbar. The kingdom was then at 
his feet, and he dealt with it as a forfeited fief. Balliol 
was sent to imprisonment in the Tower of London, and 
an English council governed Scotland so oppressively 
that it rose again the next year, in revolt. 



i2 9 7-i3°7] RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 



15; 




It was at this time 
that the famous Wil- 
liam Wallace appeared, 
and became the first 
hero of the long war 
of Scottish independ- 
ence, then begun. 
Wallace defeated the 
English at Stirling 
Bridge, and put an end 
to their rule. But 
Edward, then fighting 
the French in Flan- 
ders, made terms with 
the latter and came 
home, to lead a power- 
ful army into the north. 
He routed Wallace at 
Falkirk (1298), and 

seemed to be master of the country once more. Wal- 
lace disappeared and was scarcely heard of for several 
years. Yet Scotland was not subdued. Even Wil i iam 
when Wallace, becoming active again, had been Wallace - 
captured, tried in London for treason, and shamefully 
executed (1305), English authority was not restored. 
The Scots found a new heroic leader in Robert Bruce, a 
grandson and namesake of the Bruce who had disputed 
Balliol's claim to the Scottish crown. They made him 
their king, crowning him at Scone, and the nation was 
rallied with a more enduring resolution than before. 

72. Death of Edward I. Edward died in 1307, while 
attempting, in a feeble state of body, to lead an army in 
Scotland against Bruce. 

73. Commerce and Industries. A league headed 



WILLIAM WALLACE. 



154 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [i 3 th Cent. 



by merchants of Cologne had the monopoly of foreign 
trade in London until the reign of Henry III. Then the 
northern league (the Hanse Towns) obtained privileges 
TheHanse there, and founded a "hanse" or gild, which 
absorbed that of Cologne and became an impos- 
ing establishment, to which the name of the 
"Steelyard" was given. 1 It was not until about the 



Towns 
and the 
Steelyard 




THE STEELYARD IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 



middle of the thirteenth century that the growth of a 
body of English merchants engaged in exporting Eng- 
lish products to foreign markets can be traced. Their 
organization was known as " the Staple," though " the 

1 The name " Steelyard," given to the premises occupied by the 
merchants of the Hanse in London, was an English mistranslation 
of the Dutch name, StacUwf, which signified the hall or office 
where cloth was marked as being properly dyed. It had no refer- 
ence to steel as an article of trade, and no apparent connection 
with the name " steelyard," given to an old-fashioned instrument 
for weighing. 



i 3 thCent.] RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 



155 



Customs. 



Staple, in its primary meaning, was an appointed place to 
which all English merchants were to take their 

, , , t • , ,. The Staple. 

wool and other ' staple commodities tor sale. 
The Staple was sometimes at Bruges, sometimes at Ant- 
werp, sometimes at English towns, but it was finally es- 
tablished at Calais. 

An indefinite right which the kings had exercised, to 
take toll from goods exported and imported, was 
reduced to a system by Edward I. The fair 
toll, of ancient custom, as distinguished from "maltolt" 
or "maltote" 
(wrongful 
toll), was set- 
tled by law. 
This gave the 
name of cus- 
toms to such 
duties or dues. 
A customs de- 
partment for 
their system- 
atic collection 
was created 
by Edward I. 

Only the 
coarser kinds 
of cloth were 
made as yet 
in England ; 
for the finer 
qualities the 

English depended on the Netherlands, to which they sent 
most of their wool. Unsuccessful attempts were made to 
stop the exportation of wool and the importation of cloth. 




MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD- 



156 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [i 3 th Cent. 

74. Learning and Literature. Though there were 
lecturers and teachers at Oxford at an early day, the 
The Grey history of the great university is considered to 
Friars. begin in this century, when the number of stu- 
dents rose to many thousands. They seem to have been 
a disorderly mob, living rudely, behaving coarsely, fight- 
ing perpetually ; yet the university drew to it such teach- 
ers as Friar Roger Bacon, the " Father of Science," in 
the modern sense of the term, and it was much under 
the influence of the Franciscan brotherhood (the Grey 
Friars) to which he belonged, and which was then an 
admirable body of pious and learned men. The Univer- 
sity of Cambridge was rising at the same time, but less 
of its early history is known. 

The most valuable of the literary work of this period 
is a contemporary history of part of the reign of Henry 
III., written by Matthew of Paris, or Matthew Paris, a 
monk. It marks an important advance beyond the older 
"chronicles," towards the writing of history in a truer 
sense. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

58. King John. — His Loss of Normandy and the An- 
gevin Fiefs. 
Topics. 

1. Reasons for the election of John. 

2. Death of Arthur and dissolution of the Angevin dominion. 
Reference. — Stubbs, E. P., 136-144. 

59. King John's Quarrel with the Church. 
Topics. 

1. State of the royal power at John's succession. 

2. John's contest with the church over Stephen Langton. 

3. The pope's interdict and John's submission. 
References. — Stubbs, E. P., 145-150. Stephen Langton: Gar- 
diner, i. 177, 180-182; Green, 123, 126, 127, 130, 142, 143 ; Bright, 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 1 57 

i. 131, 135-137, I43-H7; Stubbs, E. P., 14S, 153, 156-159 ; Ran- 
some, 59; Montague, 53, 56; Taswell-Langmead, 105, 106. 
Research Questions. — (1.) From whom did John seem to in- 
herit his quarrel with the church ? (2.) Trace the culmination 
of the pope's authority in England under John. (Guest, 193-199.) 
(3.) Why did the pope by an interdict punish the people instead 
of the king ? 

60. Magna Carta. 
.Topics. 

1. The council at St. Albans, its make-up and action. 

2. John's campaign in Flanders and its effect on England. 

3. Opposition by Stephen Langton and the barons. 

4. Signing of the Magna Carta and its provisions. 

5. Magna Cartas of other peoples. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 182, 183; Bright, i. 137-139; Green, 
128-130; Colby, 74-78; Stubbs, E. P., 157; Ransome, 60-63; 
Montague, 53-57 ; Taswell-Langmead, ch. iv. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Discuss this new combination of 
barons and people against the king. (2.) By what cause was it 
brought about ? (3.) What is the significance of putting into the 
charter provisions for its execution ? (4.) What is the British 
constitution? (5.) Compare it with our constitution. (6.) How 
may changes be made in each, and which do you consider the 
more flexible ? (7.) What European country has a constitution 
resembling ours in form ? 

61. The Final Struggle with King John. 

Topics. 

1. The pope's championship of John. 

2. John's death and the termination of the trouble. 
Reference. — Stubbs, E. P., 158-161. 

Research Questions. — (1.) How does John compare with the 
preceding kings of his house ? (2.) Describe John's treatment of 
the Jews. (Guest, 195, 196.) 

62. The Beginnings of the Reign of Henry III. 

Topic 

1. Characteristics Henry showed on reaching his majority. 
Reference. — Stubbs, E. P., 161-188. 



158 RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 

63. Simon de Montfort and the Provisions of Oxford. 

Topics. 

1. New leader of the people. 

2. Henry's reason for summoning Parliament. 

3. Temper of this Parliament and the Provisions of Oxford. 

4. Prince Edward's view. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 193, 199-204; Bright, i. 152-170; 
Green, 152-160; Stubbs, E. P., ch. ix. ; Colby, 78-83 ; Ransome, 
64-67; Montague, 62, 63; Tout, Edward I., ch. ii. ; Freeman, G. 
E. C, 69-90 ; Traill, ii. 393-395 ; H. Taylor, i. 400-404 ; Creighton, 
Simon de Montfort. 

Research Questions. — (1.) In what two ways may the increase 
of the power of the church in this reign be traced? (2.) Look 
up Robert Grosseteste, and show how his calculations measured 
the exactions of the church. (Traill, i. 404.) (3.) In what three 
ways could the clergy educate the people? (Guest, 172, 173.) 

64. The Barons' War. 
Topics. 

1. Provisions of Westminster, dissensions and intrigues. 

2. St. Louis as referee. 

3. First campaign of the war. 
Reference. — Stubbs, E. P., 201-21 1. 

65. The Birth of a Representative Parliament. 

Topics. 

1. Representation of the new Parliament. 

2. Arrangements for carrying on the government. 

3. New basis for representation. 

4. Dissensions and the second campaign of the war. 

5. Results of Simon de Montfort's teachings. 
References. — Gardiner, i. 196, 201, 218; Bright, i. 165, 185, 193- 

195; Green, [58, 169-181 ; Tout, Edward I., ch. viii. ; Stubbs, 
E. P., 207-234: Colby, 89; Ransome, 65, 70; Montague, 62, 
68-70; Taswell-Langmead, ch. vii. ; Traill, i. 396-403. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What is the significance of the new 
tone which Parliament takes in this reign by asking what use is 
to be made of the money raised? (2.) Why is it a good thing 
for the people to have the king in want of money ? (3.) Trace 
the progress of royal revenues into definite forms of taxation. 
(Stubbs, E. P., 226-234.) 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 1 59. 

66. Edward I. 
Topic. 

1. Characteristics and resemblance to Henry II. 
References. — Green, 167,181-184; Stubbs, E. P., 262; Bright, 

i. 173 ; Tout, Edward I., ch. iv. ; Green, H. E. P., 290, 297-302. 

67. The Model Parliament of Edward I. 
Topics. 

1. Uncertainty in the representation. 

2. His reason for giving the towns representation. 

3. The make-up of the model Parliament. 
Reference. — Tout, Edward I., 144-147. 

Research Question. — Outline parliamentary development up 
to this time. (Ransome, 64-67.) 

68. The English " Commons" and "Lords." 
Topics. 

1. English third estate compared with that in other countries. 

2. Further effect of shire representation ; the English peerage. 

3. The new Parliament as a precedent. 
Reference. — Stubbs, C. H., ii. ch. xv. 

69. Edward's Confirmation of the Great Charter. 

Topics. 

1. Reason for confirming. 

2. Significance of the confirmation. 
Reference. — Stubbs, S. C, 487-497. 

70. The Subjugation of Wales. 
Topic. 

1. Its annexation and bestowal upon the king's oldest son. 
References. — Tout, Edward I., 107-119; Guest, 232. 

71. The Scottish War of Independence. 

Topics. 

1. Disputed succession of Scotland, and Edward as referee. 

2. Edward's claims as overlord and revolt of the Scots. 

3. William Wallace. 

4. Robert Bruce. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 221-224, 22 6 ; Bright, i. 189-192, 203- 
208; Colby, 90-92; Green, 186-193, 211-214; Stubbs, E. P., 
258-261, 274, 275. 



160 RISE OF THE ENGLISH COMMONS. 

72. Death of Edward I. 
Topic. 

i. Circumstances of his death. 

73. Commerce and Industries. 
Topics. 

i. The Steelyard and the Staple. 

2. Custom duties and cloth manufacture. 
References. — Gardiner, i. 211 ; Stubbs, E. P., 230; Cunningham 

and McArthur, 71, 74-7S, 203, 204; Ashley, i. chs. ii., iii. ; Rogers, 

chs. i., vi. ; Traill, ii. 100-114. 

74. Learning and Literature. 
Topics. 

1. Life at Oxford and Oxford teachers ; Roger Bacon. 

2. Matthew Paris and his work. 

References. — Green, 137-141 ; Colby, 83-87; Traill, ii. 72-74, 
81, 85, 360. Origin of universities and the academic degree of 
A. B. : Traill, i. 337-339. Rise of Oxford : Traill, i. 339, 340. 



SURVEY OF GENERAL HISTORY. 

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 

An Age of Adversities. The fourteenth century was a period 
of many adversities in Europe, by which the advance of civ- 
ilization appeared on the surface to be checked, though the 
moral and intellectual forces that carry humanity forward 
were making great unseen gains. 

Sca7idals in the Church. The Christian church, as a priestly 
organization, was sinking to a deplorable state, even while the 
spirit of Christianity was revealing itself with new clearness 
to the broadening intelligence of thoughtful men. Just before 
the century began, Pope Boniface VIII. had opened a con- 
flict with King Philip IV. of France, which proved disastrous 
to the head of the church. The papal capital was removed 
from Rome to Avignon, and for seventy years (known as the 
period of " the Babylonian Captivity ") French influence con- 
trolled the popes. This weakened their authority in other 
countries and lowered the respect in which they had been 
held. Then the return of the papal court to Rome was fol- 
lowed by a still worse period, of forty years, called that of 
"the Great Schism," during which rival popes reigned, one at 
Rome, the other at Avignon, each claiming divine authority, 
and each obeyed by a part of the Christian world. The 
character of the clergy, as a body, was much injured by this 
scandalous state of things at its head ; but the very scandals 
of the time were driving many minds to deeper searching for 
religious truth. 

The Black Death. Both religious and irreligious effects 
appear to have been caused by an awful visitation of plague, 
— the most dreadful of which history gives any account. 
The " Black Death," as it was called, coming from the east, 



162 GENERAL HISTORY. 

swept Europe in the middle of the century, and is believed 
to have destroyed not less than 25,000,000 of its inhabitants. 

The Dreadful State of France. The unhappiest of all lands 
in this afflicted age was France, which suffered even more 
from war than from the deadliness of the plague. Some ac- 
count of that wanton war, forced on the country by an Eng- 
lish king who claimed the French crown, appears in the next 
chapter. Its ruinous consequences to France can hardly be 
described. Authority in government was broken down ; the 
people were reduced to despair ; lawless bands of unpaid 
mercenaries were let loose to spread havoc where the arm of 
the foreign enemy had not reached. 

A parliament like that of England might have done great 
things at such a time ; but the " States-General " of France, 
which resembled the English Parliament in form, did so in 
nothing else. It was called together in 1355 and 1356, but 
worked with no success. It had met but once before in 
French history, and had neither experience nor prestige. 
The three estates could not act with agreement together. 
First the nobles and then the clergy withdrew, leaving the 
representatives of the cities alone. The latter had no coun- 
try associates. There was the fatal want of a body of land- 
owning gentry and yeomanry, to form, as in the English 
" Commons," a part of the " Third Estate," and the town dep- 
uties had not strength enough alone to carry the nation into 
great reforms which they planned. 

Towards the end of the century, the sad condition of France 
was made worse by the accession of a king (Charles VI.) who 
was a child when crowned, who was often insane in after 
years, and whose jealous uncles quarrelled over the exercise 
of authority in his name. Those quarrels bred two malignant 
factions, Burgundian and Armagnac, which brought France, 
in the next century, to still lower depths of ruin and shame. 

The Netherlands. The thrifty, freedom-loving, high-spirited 
people of Flanders strove long and hard in this century to 
cast off their count, who reigned over them as a vassal of the 



THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 163 

King of France ; but they failed in the end, and their yoke 
was made even worse. Before the century closed their coun- 
try was swallowed up (as the whole of the Netherlands was 
soon to be) in a great dominion built up by the marriages of 
the French' Dukes of Burgundy, and destined to pass with 
that dominion under the deadly rule of Spanish kings. 

Holland was already beginning to create schools under 
professional schoolmasters, which made education more com- 
mon at an early day in that little country than in any other 
in the world. 

Germany. In the divided and distracted state of Germany 
there was not much change. For several generations the 
Austrian House of Hapsburg lost its hold upon the crown, 
which was worn in that interval by kings who reigned likewise 
in Bohemia and Hungary, and who gave little attention to 
German affairs. Most of these nominal German kings went 
duly to Rome and were made nominal emperors by the pope. 

Despite the want of a national life, there was a growth of 
German spirit and a stirring of mind. In literature, the period 
was one of decline, but an interest in learning awoke, and 
the earliest of the German universities were founded in these 
years. There was increasing prosperity in the industry and 
trade of the towns. The Hanse League was at the height 
of its power. It controlled substantially the commerce of 
northern Europe, and almost dictated to kings the terms on 
which trade should be carried on. 

Italy. In Italy, throughout this century, the political dis- 
order could hardly have been worse. The mad factions, 
Guelf and Ghibelline, were tearing at each other in every 
town. War seemed everywhere incessant, and the peninsula 
swarmed with bands of hireling soldiers — " free companies," 
they were called — by whom most of the fighting was done. 
When others did not employ them, these armies of wild ad- 
venturers made war on their own account. Most of the city 
republics had lost their freedom and were submissive to some 
lord, who obtained a ducal title from the emperor or the 



164 GENERAL HISTORY. 

pope. Florence was still free and democratic, but its demo- 
cracy was becoming that of a turbulent mob. 

And yet this age of much tumult and disorder was the age 
of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and of many artists and 
scholars who gave Italy the lead of all Europe in the finer 
culture of the human mind. It was the age which opened 
what is called the period of Italian Renaissance, signifying a 
new birth. 

Other Countries. In other parts of the world, the four- 
teenth century was marked by many important events. The 
Turks, already masters of Asia Minor, crossed the Hellespont 
and entered Europe, beginning conquests which covered most 
of the region south of the lower Danube before the century 
closed, and which opened a struggle for Hungary that went 
desperately on during three hundred years. Constantinople, 
with little territory outside of its walls, still held out against 
them, valiantly but vainly resisting its fate. 

In what is now Russia, which had* been overwhelmed by 
Mongols or Tartars in the preceding century, a duchy was 
rising at Moscow, that would in time break the Tartar yoke 
and begin to form the future empire of the Tsar. Poland 
had become an important kingdom and entered the most 
brilliant period of its career. 

The Swiss, in this century, made good their independence 
against the Hapsburgs of Austria, who claimed sovereignty 
over them. 

Inventions and Discoveries. Gunpowder, or some explosive 
substance of like nature, appears to have been known in 
China, and perhaps in India, at an earlier time ; but the 
Arabs or Moors are believed to have been the first to use it 
in war. Borrowed probably from them, it came into Europe 
some time during the early part of this fourteenth . century, 
so far as can be ascertained. Rudely made cannon were in- 
vented for its use, long before lighter firearms were thought 
possible, and its early employment was doubtless in sieges 
alone. It has been said that the English had cannon at the 
battle of Cre'cy, in 1346, but the statement is open to doubt. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 

The Last Plantagenet Kings: Edward II. — Edward 
III. — Richard II. 1307-1399. 

75. Edward II. and his Favorites. Edward II., 
twenty-three years old when he succeeded his father 
(1307), had already shown the weakness of his character. 
He had attached himself to a Gascon knight, Piers Gav- 
eston, whose influence was seen to be bad, and whom 
the old king, for that reason, had banished from court. 
One of the first royal acts of the foolish son was to call 
Gaveston back to his side, to give him the rich earldom 
of Cornwall, and to exalt him in favor, while the chief 
ministers of the late king were dismissed. The young 
king had already been betrothed to the Princess Isabella 
of France, and when he hastened, soon after his father's 
burial, to claim the bride, he made Gaveston regent dur- 
ing his absence, with unusual powers. Thus fatuously 
from the beginning he provoked the ill-will of 

n 1 1 • r r-in-i r^ Gaveston. 

all the chief men of the kingdom. Gaveston 
provoked them still more by the insolence with which 
he bore his unearned honors, and a powerful combination 
was formed to put him down. At its head was the 
king's cousin, Earl Thomas of Lancaster, whose father 
was the younger son of Henry III. 

It is useless to detail the events of the twenty years 
of confusion and disorder during which this incapable 
king wore the crown, but cannot be said to have reigned. 



166 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1310-1323 

In 1 3 10, Gaveston was taken prisoner by the barons and 
put to death. Lancaster was supreme in affairs 

Lancaster. 

tor some years ; but he, too, was an incapable 
man, and his power waned. Meantime,' the country suf- 
fered in every way, from dearth, from pestilence, and 
from disasters in the Scottish war, which still went on. 
Bruce, in 13 14, had so nearly expelled the English from 
his kingdom that Stirling was the only important strong- 
hold they held, and that was being besieged. 
Bannock- King Edward led such force as he could raise 
to its relief, and suffered a frightful defeat at 
Bannockburn, on the 24th of June, which practically re- 
stored their independence to the Scots. 

After a time two new favorites, the Despensers, 
father and son, took possession of the weak-minded 
king, and, as Lancaster lost authority, they rose in 
TheDe- power. Then a new combination of barons 
spensers. drove the Despensers into exile (1321); but 
there was such a lack of leadership in the league that 
Edward was able, for the first and only time, to make a 
fight on his own account. Lancaster took the field 
against him, but was defeated, taken prisoner, and be- 
headed ; whereupon he became, in the popular estima- 
tion, a martyr, and miracles were supposed to be wrought 
at his tomb. The Despensers were recalled, and both 
they and the king indulged freely in revenge. 

76. Deposition and Death of Edward II. Con- 
tempt for the king was universal, and he was surrounded 
by treacheries, even in his own house. In 1323, his 
queen, Isabella, went to France, to use influence with 
her brother, in settling disputes that had risen concern- 
ing homage due to the French crown for fiefs in France 
still held by the English kings. There she became 
infatuated with one Roger Mortimer, lord of Wigmore, 



1323-133°] VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 167 

and joined him in intrigues for removing Edward from 
the throne. Her eldest son, another Edward, who fol- 
lowed her to France, was drawn into the plot. The be- 
trayed husband and father became aware of the treason, 
but he was powerless to defend himself ; for the loyalty 
of the English to their king was practically dead. The 
queen, raising a fleet arid a force of men for the invasion 
of England, landed in Suffolk in September, 1326, and 
the helpless king fled before her to Wales. He was 
captured in November, when both the Despensers were 
also taken and put to death. The boy, Edward, then 
fourteen years old, was declared guardian of the king- 
dom, and a Parliament of the three estates was sum- 
moned in his name. The captive king resigned his 
crown, and Parliament, meeting in January, 1327, gave 
it to his son. For eight months the deposed sovereign 
was allowed to live, in confinement, first at Kenilworth 
and later in Berkeley Castle ; then he was secretly put to 
death, in what manner and by whom was never known. 

For nearly four years the shameless Queen Isabella 
and Mortimer, her lover, controlled the government, in 
the name of the boy-king. At the end of that time 
Edward had become old enough to see in what 

, , . i tt i ■**■ Execution 

manner he was being used. He caused Morti- of Morti- 
mer to be arrested and brought before Parlia- 
ment under many accusations, including that of the 
murder of the late king. The much hated man was 
condemned without a hearing and hanged. 

77. Beginning of the Personal Reign of Edward III. 
With the arrest of Mortimer (October, 1330) the actual 
reign of Edward III. may be said to have begun. He 
was then eighteen years of age, but already married to 
Philippa of Hainault, and already the father of a son. 
There had been, since he was crowned, a fresh outbreak 



1 68 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1328-1337 




EDWARD III. 



of war with Scotland (1328), and it 
had been ended by a treaty of peace, 
in which all claims of the English 
crown over Scotland had been re- 
nounced in his name, while his in- 
fant sister had been given in mar- 
riage to the infant Scottish heir. 
But when Robert Bruce died, in 
1329, the son, David II., who suc- 
ceeded him, was only seven years 
old, and circumstances encouraged 
a son of the dethroned king, John 
Balliol, to claim the crown. As he 
offered to put the Scottish kingdom 
into vassalage again, Edward was 
persuaded to support Balliol's claim, 

From a wall-painting, for- anc J to lend help by which he Was 
merly in St. Stephen's 10 • 

chapel, Westminster. seated on the Scottish throne. 

Balliol, when in power, enraged 
his subjects by surrendering to the English the whole 
of Scotland south of the Forth, besides acknowledging 
the remainder to be an English fief. A few 
castles still held out for the young king, David 
Bruce, who had been sent into France, and the resistance 
grew. Repeated risings occurred ; the odious vassal-king 
needed constantly to be helped by his overlord. The 
Scots renewed their alliance with France, and received 
French aid in money and men. And so the fatal breach 
of peace with Scotland led on to a war with France, which 
lasted a hundred years. 

78. The War with France. If Edward had gone to 
war with France for no cause but its alliance with the 
Scots, the conflict might not have been long ; but he 
began the war with a challenge that left no room for 



War with 
Scotland. 



1328-1337] VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 



169 



peace, by laying claim to the French crown. The late 
King of France, Charles IV., had died without children, 
in 1328. His sister, Isabella, the mother of Edward 
III., was the nearest akin to him of any living person, 
and the crown would have belonged to her, or to one of 
several nieces, if women could inherit it, which Edward . s 
the French denied. Falling back on a law of ^French 
one branch of the ancient Franks, 1 called the crowu - 
Salic Law, which declared that " Salic land shall not fall 
to woman," they gave the crown to a cousin of the de- 
ceased king, Philip VI., or Philip of Valois. Edward dis- 
puted Philip's right, contending that, if Isabella could 
not inherit, he could do so, 
as her lawful heir. Accord- 
ing to all authorities his 
claim was not legally good ; 
but, in 1337, he made it seri- 
ous by assuming the title of 
King of France and by pre- 
paring to attempt a conquest 
of the throne. 

Edward found allies on 
the borders of France, in 
the enterprising cities of 
Flanders, which were in re- 
volt, under the lead of 




A CROSSBOWMAN WITH HIS SHIELD. 



Jacques Van Artevelde, striv- 
ing to free their country from its vassalage to the French 
crown. 



1 Before their conquest of Gaul, the Franks who dwelt on the 
lower Rhine were known to the Romans as Salian Franks and 
those on the middle Rhine as Ripuarian Franks. It was the for- 
mer who led the invasion and conquest, and the law referred to 
above was derived from their ancient code. 



170 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 



[1338-1346 



In the first nine years of the war two great battles 
were fought, and two English victories won, which shone 
in the eyes of many later generations as the most glori- 
sea-fight 0lls events in English history. The first was 
off stays. a fight at seEj off the Flemish port of Sluys 

(1340), and it resulted in the destruction of the French 

fleet. After the bat- 
tle at Sluys, there were 
five years of planless 
fighting in Brittany and 
on the Aquitanian bor- 
der, — tiresome sieges 
and curious exploits of 
knightly valor, — all the 
story of which is told 
with great spirit and at 
much length by Frois- 
sart, the old chronicler 
of the court. In the 
sixth year (1346), Ed- 
ward and his eldest son 
(the Black Prince, as he 
was called, supposedly 
from the color of his 
armor) ravaged Normandy and then moved on Calais. 

At Crecy, thirty miles from Amiens, the English 
encountered (August 26) an army much greater than 
their own, led by the French king. On the French side 
was a formidable number of mounted knights and men- 
at-arms, clad in mail — the feudal array of cavalry — and 
with them were 1 5,000 Genoese archers who used the 
clumsy cross-bow. Edward's main dependence 
in the battle was on the stout yeomen of a 
country which had nearly left feudalism behind it, among 




AN ARCHER WITH HIS SHEAF OF ARROWS. 



Battle of 
Crecy. 



1346-1347] VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 1 71 

the things of the past. They fought on foot, with the 
English long-bow, which no weak arm could bend, and 
which drove its heavy arrow with deadly force. A 
charge of the French horse on these English bowmen 
was repulsed with great confusion, and ended in so 
dreadful a rout that 30,000 of the French were left dead 
on the field. The battle of Crecy is most memorable, 
historically, as a great and impressive blow at aristo- 
cratic feudalism, by a nation which had begun to arm 
itself with the strength of its common people. 

From the Crecy battlefield Edward marched on to 
Calais and laid siege to the city, building a complete 
outer town around its walls. Thus quartered, siege of 
he waited for nearly a year, until Calais was Calais - 
starved into surrender. Thereafter, for two hundred 
years, Calais was an English port. 

While Edward was engaged in the war with France 
the Scots had nearly recovered their kingdom. Balliol 
had been driven out and young David Bruce TheScotg 
had been brought back from France. But there war - 
came a great reverse to them. Undertaking an invasion 
of England in 1346, during the siege of Calais, they 
were met and defeated at Nevill's Cross ; King David 
was taken prisoner and sent to the Tower. 

79. The Black Death and its Effects. In October, 
1347, the king returned home, having arranged a truce 
which circumstances prolonged for eight years. The 
state of feeling in England was then very happy. The 
court gave itself up to joyous pastimes, and the people, 
proud and prosperous, followed the example of the court. 
It was at this time that King Edward created the splen- 
did Order of the Garter, in imitation of King Arthur's 
Round Table and its twelve knights. 

From that height of joy and gayety the nation was 



172 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1347-1369 

suddenly struck down by the most frightful visitation of 
plague ever known in the world. The pestilence called 
the Black Death, which entered Europe from the east 
near the end of the year 1347, reached England in the 
following August, arrived at London in November, and 
was soon spreading death in every part of the island. 
The disease was virulent for a number of months, and 
then subsided, but only to reappear in 1361, and again 
in 1369. It is believed to have swept away from one 
third to one half of the entire population of the kingdom. 
The social effect was so great as to change the charac- 
ter of English classes in all future time. Wages were 
Social doubled, though Parliament endeavored to fix 

effects. them by oppressive laws, which landlords strove 
eagerly to enforce. There is some reason for supposing 
that many landlords resorted to harsher measures than 
these, attempting to revive old demands for labor from 
their tenants which in late years they had given up. 
For some time past the manorial system had 

VillsiiicicrG 

disappear- been undergoing a great change. A money 
rent had been taking the place of the personal 
labor by which villein -tenants paid formerly for the use 
of their bits of land, and the greater part of the villein- 
class is supposed to have become practically free at the 
time of the plague. It seems possible that the lords, 
when labor became scarce, attempted to bring back the 
old state of villeinage ; but how far that was undertaken 
is in doubt. 

80. Edward III. and the Parliament. In its first 
period, the king's war in France was doubtless favored 
by popular feeling. Edward was extravagant in it, as in 
everything else ; his demands for money were sorely 
felt ; but he gratified the national love of glory, and was, 
on the whole, upheld. In his dealings with his subjects, 



1338-1355] VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 1 73 

however, he strained their good-will to the utmost ; and 
the Commons, if they did not quarrel with him, learned 
boldness in their attitude, feeling more of responsibility 
for the defence of English liberty, since the lords on 
whom they formerly leaned were now drawn to the side 
of the king by their interest in the great war. It was 
in this period that the Commons appear to have begun 
to hold their meetings apart, and that " the definite and 
final arrangement of Parliament in two houses " was 
made. 

81. Industrial and Commercial Progress. The one 
great service which Edward III. rendered to England 
was the bringing in of Flemish weavers and Flemisll 
dyers, who established the manufacture of finer weavers - 
cloths than the country had formerly produced. Hitherto 
the English fabrics had been coarse in make and poor in 
color, or else undyed, and found no market abroad. With 
the immigration of Flemish weavers, who escaped in 
large numbers at this time from the disorders in their 
own land, a great change began, and England, ere long, 
was manufacturing its own wool, and its principal export 
was cloth. 

There now grew up a new class of English merchants, 
who organized themselves under the name of Merchant 
Adventurers, and entered into competition with the 
Hanse traders and with the Merchants of the Staple, as 
the traders who handled the old staple exports 
of the country were known. It was the begin- AdventSr- 
ning of the great commercial career of the Eng- e 
lish nation. But of English shipping afloat there was 
very little yet. 

82. Renewed War with France. War with France 
was reopened in 1355, when the Black Prince landed an 
expedition at Bordeaux and began a campaign of plunder 



174 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1355-1360 



in southern France. That year the English did nothing 
but march through peaceful Languedoc, gathering up 
enormous booty and leaving ruin and misery behind 
them. In the next year, the prince led an expedition 
into central France, spreading ruin as before. As he 
returned to Bordeaux, laden with plunder, he encoun- 
tered a French army, under King John, near Poitiers. 
He had but 8,000 men, it is said, while the French num- 
Battie of bered 50,000 ; but he placed his formidable bow- 
Poitiers. men t0 sucn advantage, and the French king 
managed his heavier forces so badly, that a victory as 




FRANCE AT THE TIME OF THE TREATY OF BRETIGNY. 



overwhelming as Crecy was won at Poitiers. King John 
was among the prisoners taken, and he remained in cap- 
tivity for some years, royal authority in France being 
represented by his son Charles, then a lad of nineteen. 
In 1 360, even the hard heart of Edward was touched 



i357-i37°] VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 175 

by the terrible misery that he saw in France, and he con- 
sented to peace on terms set forth in the Treaty Trea tyof 
of Bretigny, which gave him the whole Aquita- Breti e n y- 
nian domain of the Angevin kings in its largest extent, 
together with Ponthieu, not as French fiefs, but in full 
sovereignty ; while he, on his side, renounced his claim 
to the crown of France. 

Already, in 1357, after a disastrous campaign in Scot- 
land, he had given 1113 his designs against Scot- 

• , ' f n 1 , ! 7 1 Scottish 

tish independence, and had concluded a treaty independ- 
which ransomed and restored King David to his 
throne. 

83. Loss of French Conquests. The Black Prince 
was sent, in 1363, to govern Aquitaine as its duke, and 
showed little wisdom in his conduct there. He wasted 
his army in a foolish and wicked undertaking in Spain, 
and oppressed his subjects with taxes which caused bit- 
ter discontent. France, meantime, acquired an able 
king, by the death of the captive King John and the 
accession of his son Charles. The latter saw that the 
English hold of Aquitaine had grown weak, and he found 
excuses for reopening war. In the campaigns that fol- 
lowed, the French commander, Bertrand Du Guesclin, 
avoided battle, but harassed the English and wore out 
their strength. 

A single hideous triumph, eternally disgraceful to his 
memory, was won by the Black Prince. Having retaken 
the city of Limoges (1370), after revolt, he or- 

j t> v J/ /' Massacre 

dered a general massacre of the inhabitants, at 
and allowed 3000 men, women, and children to 
be butchered in cold blood. A possible palliation for 
the fiendish deed is found in the fact that the prince 
was a sick and dying man, already suffering from some 
disease which slowly consumed his life. He went home 



176 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1371-1377 



to England the next year, leaving his brother John, Duke 
of Lancaster, called John of Gaunt, or Ghent (from his 
Flemish birthplace), in command. Under John of Gaunt, 
the English lost ground in France so steadily that, in 
1375, when a truce was made, they held nothing but the 
five cities of Bordeaux, Bayonne, Brest, Cherbourg, and 
Calais. 

84. The Church and the Nation. — Wiclif and the 
First Reformers. At this period a new discontent with 

things in state and 
church was spread- 
ing in the minds of 
the English people. 
The Plague had 
shocked and shaken 
old habits of feel- 
ing ; disaster and 
shame in France 
were blotting the 
memory of Crecy 
and Poitiers ; griev- 
ous taxes were 
weighing the coun- 
try down ; its com- 
merce was being 
harassed by priva- 
teers and pirates at 
sea ; the king was in his dotage ; the heir to the throne 
was dying ; his brother, John of Gaunt, was distrusted 
and disliked ; politically the kingdom was in an evil plight. 
The state of the church was even Worse. The popes 
of "the Babylonian Captivity," at Avignon (see page 161) 
were looked upon as enemies in league with France ; yet 
they drew an ever-swelling revenue from the English 




JOHN OF GAUNT. 



I37J-I377] VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 



177 



church, and their tribunals encroached more and more 
on the jurisdiction of the English courts. The Eng- 
lish clergy, holding lands that were reckoned, when the 
fourteenth century closed, to equal half the area of the 




JOHN WICLIF. 



kingdom, were demoralized by the enormous wealth they 
controlled. 

The general discontent with the church found many 
voices ; but two were heard above the rest, and stirred 
a great movement of revolt and reform. One wiciifand 
was that of John Wiclif, teacher and preacher Lan ^ land - 
of Oxford, — early among the leaders of Christian pro- 
test against grasping worldliness in the church of Christ. 
Wiclif attacked monks, friars, and worldly priests, and 



178 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1371-1377 

sought to institute in their place an order of " poor 
priests," pious men who went among the people, as the 
friars had done at first, preaching and doing good. The 
other voice was that of William Langland, who wrote a 
strange and remarkable allegorical poem, " The Vision 
of Piers Plowman," idealizing and exalting the humble 
life of honest work and simple ways. 

85. The " Good Parliament." A party of barons, 
headed by John of Gaunt, who wished to get the wealth 
of the church into their own hands, attempted to give 
Wiclif's opinions a political turn. For a time they con- 
trolled the government, and John of Gaunt, Duke of 
Lancaster, was believed to be planning to make himself 
king when his father died, setting aside the young son 
of his dying brother, the Black Prince. The Prince 
rallied his failing strength to defeat the scheme, and his 
recourse was not, as it would have been in earlier times, 
to a rival party in the baronage, but to the Commons in 
Parliament, with whom he joined hands. Supported by 
impeach- h" 11 ' tne House of Commons exercised for the 
ment. fi rs |- t j me (1376) the power to impeach minis- 
ters and officers of the king and to bring them to trial 
before the Lords. The " Good Parliament," as it was 
called, which did this, attempted much more excellent 
work ; but the Black" Pfim:e died, the Duke of Lancaster 
regained power, and what Parliament had done was 
undone, except that the precedent of impeachment re- 
mained, as a constitutional fact which could not be wiped 
out. In the next year, the long reign of Edward III. 
was ended by his death, and Richard II., the Black 
Prince's son, then ten years of age, was raised without 
resistance to the throne. 

86. Richard II. and the Peasant Revolt. The 
poor boy who was crowned and lifted to the throne in 



1377] 



VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 



179 



1377 is a pathetic figure in English history. Fortune 
was unkind to him. He had no good teacher, no consci- 
entious minister, no protecting friend. His selfish and 




TOMB OF THE HLACK PRINCE IN CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. 
His helmet, shield, and shirt of mjjl are shown above. 

envious uncles were distrusted and feared. The ruinous 
wars with France and Scotland, waged in his name, were 
carried blunderingly on, from bad to worse results. 

The ferment of general discontent, the resistance of 
landlords to rising wages, the increasing independence 
of the peasantry, and the thinking which Wiclif and his 



i8o 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1377-1381 



disciples stirred up, had given a strangely early birth to 

extreme democratic ideas. Rhymes and popular sayings 

that seem to belong to the nineteenth century rather 

than to the fourteenth became part of the common talk. 

" When Adam delved and Eve span, 
Who was then the gentleman ? " 

is a couplet still familiar which comes from those days. 

In 1 38 1 a grievous poll-tax gave fresh provocation to 
the feeling that was abroad, and it flamed suddenly into 
revolt. Almost at once the peasants were everywhere 
in arms. From Kent and neighboring counties a host 
said to be 100,000 in number was assembled and marched 
in good order to London, led by Wat Tyler, 

Wat Tyler, ° ' J J ' 

jack straw, Jack Straw, and John Ball, as the leaders were 

John Ball. ~ _ _ , , . 

known, in .London, many obnoxious persons 
were put to death, including the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, then chancellor, 
who was supposed to be 
the author of the tax. 
But the young king, boy 
of fifteen as he was, went 
boldly into the midst of 
the insurgents and mas- 
tered them by his confi- 
dent bearing. They were 
given charters of freedom 
from villeinage, which 
were their principal de- 
mand, and dispersed to 
their homes ; notwith- 
standing that Tyler, their 
leader, was wickedly slain 
in their presence by some of the angry attendants of the 
king. In Richard's conduct throughout this affair it is 




JOHN BALL PREACHING FROM HORSE- 
BACK, FROM AN OLD MS. 



13S1-13S4] VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 181 

impossible not to see a strength of mind and character 
that was capable of great things, if it could have been 
rightly trained. 

The revolt of the peasants was ended in a week ; then 
a cruel retaliation began, and no less than 1500 Re suitof 
are said to have been tried and condemned to the revolt - 
death. But the main object of their rising had been 
gained. " The custom of commuting the old labor-rents 
for money payments became universal ; " 1 villeinage rap- 
idly disappeared. 

87. Wiclif and the Lollards. The peasants' rising, 
attributed in part to the democratic influence of Wiclif's 
" poor priests," caused many in the upper classes who 
had favored his teachings to draw back. Others shrank 
from an issue that Wiclif had opened with the existing 
church, on the subject of papal indulgences and abso- 
lutions, and on the worship of images and saints. His 
enemies in the church then made head against him, and 
he was forced to retire from Oxford to a parish, where 
he died in 1384. A persecution, mild at first, but violent 
in the following reigns, fell on his disciples, who came 
to be called " Lollards," a nickname borrowed from the 
Dutch. 

Political and social aims continued to be mixed with 
the religious ideas of Lollardism during most of the fif- 
teenth century ; but its influence as a religious move- 
ment was the longest and the most deeply felt, -vviciifs 
Wiclif, like Luther, gave the Bible to the people Blble - 
in their own tongue, by translating it, and Wiclif's Bible 
made his influence lasting, sowing seeds in the English 
mind which no persecution could destroy. 

88. The King and the Ducal Factions. During 

1 J. T. Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, vol. 
i. ch. ix. 



182 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [13S6-1396 



Richard's minority his 
reign was filled with 
factious contests, end- 
ing (1386) in the tri- 
umph of a baronial 
party headed by the 
youngest of the king's 
uncles, Thomas, Duke 
of Gloucester, which 
took possession of the 
government in a vio- 
lent way. Richard, 
for some reason, was 
submissive to this 
usurpation until he 
had passed his twen- 
ty-third year. Then, 
suddenly, one day, in 
1389, he asserted his 
rights, dismissed the commission of regency that had 
been set over him, and took the reins, without challenge, 
into his own hands. 

89. Richard's Personal Reign and his Deposition. 
For seven years from that day King Richard reigned 
wisely and well. He stopped the miserable French 
war, and when, in 1394, he lost his excellent young wife, 
Anne of Bohemia, he tried to heal the enmity between 
England and France by marrying the French king's 
daughter, a child of eight years. He sought to protect 
the peasants from oppression by the landlords and the 
Lollards from persecution by the church. His peace 
policy was detestable to the barons, his justice to the 
landlords, his tolerance to the clergy ; and thus he made 
powerful enemies by every good thing that he did, while 




RICHARD II. 



1398-1399] VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 183 

the friends that he won were weak. His own kinsmen 
were the most dangerous of his foes. 

Possibly there was then a situation in which he saw 
deadly danger to himself and his crown. At all events, 
by some malignant influence, which nobody has rightly 
explained, an evil change was suddenly wrought in the 
character of his reign. In 1398, he assembled a packed 
Parliament, which voted him certain taxes for life, and 
which delegated all its authority to a committee of his 
friends. This gave him a more absolute power than 
any English king had possessed before. In the first act 
of Shakespeare's " King Richard the Second " there is a 
probably true representation of the autocratic temper 
with which he ruled England that year. As set forth in 
the play, he banished his cousin Henry, Duke of Here- 
ford (son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster), from 
England ; and when, in the next year, the old Ba nish- 
duke died, he seized the Lancastrian lands. Hlnr°of 
The banished Henry then came boldly back* to Lancaster, 
confront the king, having assurances of strong support. 
He landed with a small force in Yorkshire (July 4, 1 399), 
giving out that he sought only to recover his inheritance ; 
but, gathering an army as he advanced, he soon appeared 
as the champion of public rights. Richard was in Ireland 
at the time, attending to troubles of the " English Pale." 
He returned to find himself almost without a man at his 
back, and, recognizing his helplessness, he surrendered 
both his person and his crown. Taken to Lon- Deposition 
don and placed in the Tower, he signed a formal of Rlchard 
abdication, and the vacant throne was bestowed by au- 
thority of Parliament on Henry of Lancaster, as being 
" descended by right line of the blood, coming from the 
good lord King Henry III." Once more the right of 
Parliament to control the succession was made good. 



1 84 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 



[•599 



Chaucer. 



90. The Beginning of a Great Literature in the 
English Language. The supreme literary fact of this 
period in English history is the fact that, when England 
produced a poet of the highest order of poetical genius, 
he found his native language not only fit for 
his song, but so far respected in the educated 
circles of the day that he could bring it into use. At 
no earlier time could a poet of Chaucer's class, appealing 
______ to the cultivated 



and not the com- 
mon taste of his 
age, have been able 
to write in Eng- 
lish verse. The de- 
mand of the audi- 
ence for which he 
wrote would have 
been for Latin or 
for French. But 
now, for the first 
time in three cen- 
turies, the language 
of England had 
again become the 
language of its lit- 
erature, for learned 
and unlearned, for 
court and cottage 
alike ; and the fact had great meaning. For the char- 
acter, for the individuality of the nation, we may say 
that it dates a coming of age. 

Chaucer touched England with the new warmth of 
imagination that had been kindled in the Italian mind. 
In the "Canterbury Tales," which describe a company 




GEOFFREY CHAUCER. 



i 3 99] VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 185 

of pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas 
a Becket, he painted a scene from English life in the 
fourteenth century, — a procession of the characters in 
its society, — the historical value of which is quite equal 
to its poetical worth. 

If Chaucer did not stand so high above them all, his 
fellow poets of the time would interest us more than they 
do ; for they were no mean heralds of the great literature 
which England was then making ready to give 
to the world. Langland's " Vision of Piers contempo- 
Plowman," John Gower's "Confessio Amantis," 
and the " Bruce " of the Scottish poet John Barbour, would 
have given a fair distinction to this age, if it had offered 
no higher achievement ; while Wiclif, in his translation of 
the Bible and in his tracts, had opened a great common 
school for the cultivation of English prose. 

The enactment of a statute in 1362, requiring all 
pleadings in court to be in the English tongue, sovereign- 
shows the completeness with which the Ian- Engusih 
guage of the people had now recovered its sov- lan e ua £ e - 
ereignty in the land. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

75. Edward II. and his Favorites. 
Topics. 

1. Gaveston and Lancaster. 

2. Battle of Bannockburn. 

3. The Despensers. 

4. Lancaster's death. 
Reference. — Stubbs, E. P., 263-281. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What danger to a kingdom in having 
a weak son succeed a strong father? (2.) How does a country 
gain under a strong ruler ? (3.) Illustrate these points from 
kings since the Norman Conquest. 



186 VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 

76. Deposition and Death of Edward II. 
Topics. 

i. Treachery of Queen Isabella and Edward's death. 

2. Prince Edward as guardian of the kingdom. 

3. Mortimer's death. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 229; Green, 210, 211 ; Stubbs, E. P., 
285-288; Ransome, 75; Taswell-Langmead, 204, 205. Lords 
Ordainers : Gardiner, i. 226; Bright, i. 200, 201; Green, 208; 
Stubbs, E. P., 270-272 ; Ransome, 74 ; Green, H. E. P., i. 
362-367; Taswell-Langmead, 265, 266. 

Research Questions. — (1.) By the deposition of Edward what 
great right of the people over the kingship was reasserted? (2.) 
What great theory of government was enunciated in this reign? 
(Stubbs, E. P., 281.) 

77. Beginning of the Personal Reign of Edward III. 
Topics. 

1. His marriage. 

2. War with Scotland. 

3. Crowning of John Balliol and renewal of the war. 
Reference. — Warburton, Edward III., 16-29. 

78. The "War with France. 
Topics. 

1. Edward's claim to the French crown. 

2. Edward's allies. 

3. Battle of Sluys and the first six years of the war. 

4. Crecy and the English bowmen ; siege of Calais. 

5. Successes and reverses of the Scots. 

Reference. — Warburton, Edward III., 34-44, 58-75, 80-84. 94- 

98, 103-133. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Why did Parliament uphold Edward 

in his war with France ? (2.) What right of consultation did 

Parliament thus assume? (See Wool and Politics, Gibbins, 48, 

and Ransome, 112.) 

79. The Black Death and its Effects. 
Topics. 

1. The king's return and his welcome. 

2. The plague and the social effect of its ravages. 

3. Attempts to revive old labor claims. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 187 

References. — Gardiner, i. 248-250 ; Bright, i. 229, 267 ; Green, 
247, 250; Colby, 101-103 ; Guest, 269-271; Gibbins, 70-74; 
Rogers, ch. viii. ; Cunningham and McArthur, 40-42, 60, 65, 82, 

9°, 175, 177- 
Research Questions. — (1.) For what were labor claims com- 
muted? (2.) For what had military service been commuted? 
(3.) Show why these were steps towards freedom. (4.) Why did 
the ravages of the plague raise wages ? (Gibbins, 71.) (5.) On 
what are wages dependent to-day ? 

80. Edward III. and the Parliament. 
Topics. 

1. King's demand for money and growing boldness of Commons. 

2. Separation of Commons and Lords. 
References. — Ransome, 75-83 ; Stubbs, C. H., ii. ch. xvi. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Why was it natural for the Lords to 

favor war while the Commons opposed it ? (2.) Our House of 
Representatives corresponds to what house of Parliament ? (3.) 
What power in common do both have ? (4.) In the division of 
the houses, where did the clergy take their seats ? (5.) Why ? (6.) 
Who were the representatives of the clergy? 

81. Industrial and Commercial Progress. 

Topics. 

1. Introduction of Flemish weavers. 

2. Merchant Adventurers. 

References. — Ashley, book ii. ch. iii. Edward III. and the Flem- 
ish weavers : Gibbins, 53. Industry and trade : Gardiner, i. 248- 
250 ; Bright, i. 255-258 ; Colby, 87-89, 92, 93 ; Gibbins, chs. iv., 
v.; Rogers, chs. vi., viii.; Traill, ii. 100-114, 142-146, 193, 252- 
259. 

82. Renewed "War with France. 
Topics. 

1. The Black Prince in Languedoc. 

2. Battle of Poitiers and treaty of Bretigny. 

3. King David of Scotland restored. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 256, 257. 



188 VAINGLORY IN FOREIGN WAR. 

83. Loss of French Conquests. 

Topics. . ' " 

i. The Black Prince in Aquitaine and the massacre of Limoges. 

2. English losses. 
Reference. — Bright, i. 235-241. 

84. The Church and the Nation. — Wiclif and the 

First Reformers. 
Topics. 

1. Discontent in England, in state and church. 

2. John Wiclif and William Langland. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 257-261 ; Warburton, 246-256. John 
Wiclif: Gardiner, i. 261-263, 2 66, 269; Bright, i. 266, 267; Green, 
235-244; Colby, 103-105; Rogers, 247-273; Traill, ii. 152, 153, 
160-172, 288. The "Babylonish Captivity" of the church: 
Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

85." The " Good Parliament." 

Topics. 

1. John of Gaunt. 

2. First instance of the power of impeachment. 

3. Lancaster again in power and death of Edward III. 
References. — Gardiner, i. 262; Green, 231-235; Stubbs, C. H., 

ii. 428-435 ; Taswell-Langmead, 277, 278. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What is meant by impeachment? 
(Ransome, 79.) (2.) Who exercises the power of impeachment 
in the United States? (3.) How often and in what instances 
has it been exercised ? (4.) What would justify its use ? 

86. Richard II. and the Peasant Revolt. 

Topics. 

1. Drawbacks in Richard's circumstances. 

2. Discontent and uprising of the peasantry. 

3. Richard's courage and suppression of the revolt. 
References. — Peasants' revolt: Gardiner, i. 268, 269; Bright, 

i. 244, 245 ; Green, 250-255 ; Colby, 105-109; Cunningham and 
McArthur, 42, 43; Gibbins, 78; Rogers, 256-266 ; Traill, ii. 138, 
152, 153, 170, 247, 248-250. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Discuss the chances of good gov- 
ernment during the minority of a king. (2.) How might the king's 
education suffer and entail bad government later ? Illustrate from 
Henry III. and Richard II. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 189 

87. Wiclif and the Lollards. 
Topics. 

1. Reaction against Lollardism ; its political and social aims. 

2. Wicklif ' s service to the people. 
Reference. — Warburton, Edward III., 250-255. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What saved Wiclif from the anger 

of the pope ? (Guest, 293.) (2.) Of what importance was it in 
the history of the church that England's queen was from Bo- 
hemia ? (Guest, 306.) (3.) Who were the " poor priests " or 
Lollards? (Gibbins, 75 ; Guest, 313.) 

88. The King and the Ducal Factions. 
Topic. 

1. Usurpation of the Duke of Gloucester. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 278-280. 

89. Richard's Personal Reign and his Deposition. 
Topics. 

1. The king's efforts at good government. 

2. Change in the character of his reign. 

3. Banishment of the Duke of Hereford and his return. 

4. Richard's surrender and abdication. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 280-286. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What deposition of a king preceded 
this one ? (2.) Significance of these facts? 

90. The Beginning of a Great Literature in the English 

Language. 
Topics. 

1. Condition of the English language. 

2. Chaucer and " The Canterbury Tales." 

3. Other writers. 

References. — -Gardiner, i. 258, 270-272; Bright, i. 271-274; 
Green, 217-222; Bright, i. 271-274; Guest, 278-291; Traill, ii. 
207-231. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Why did the pilgrims go to Canter- 
bury ? (2.) In what does the historical value of " The Canterbury 
Tales " consist ? (3.) Of what sort were the chief gains made by 
the people under the Plantagenet line ? (4.) Name those of the 
family who may be called great, and tell why. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MEDIAEVAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 

91. Norman Influence on English Civilization. In 

manners and modes of living, if not otherwise, the Nor- 
mans who came to England in the eleventh century were 
more advanced than the people whom they subdued ; 
and the reasons for their being so are plain. They had 
taken from the Franks, or French, a better degree of 
culture, which the latter owed to the Roman institutions 
and social forms that they spared when they overran 
Gaul. The English, who spared little that they found 
in Britain, and who had learned nothing from the older 
civilization until after a Christian church was restored 
among them, were naturally rising from barbarism by 
slower steps. They had been hindered in their progress, 
moreover, by the intrusion upon them of the still more 
barbarous Danes. 

As a consequence, their habits, and the general state 
in which they lived, were much scorned by their Norman 
conquerors. The houses and the dress of even the Eng- 
lish nobles were described as being mean, and all classes 
were particularly accused of gluttony and intemperance. 
The early chroniclers who speak of these things com- 
plain, at the same time, that the new-comers were badly 
intemper- influenced by English example, in the matter of 
ance. intemperance and in other habits of life ; but 

there cannot be a doubt that the civilizing of English 
society was much quickened in many ways by the coming 
of the Normans into the land. 



MEDIEVAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 191 

92. Mediaeval Habitations. At their best, however, 
the conditions of life, during three or four centuries after 
the Norman Conquest, and the manners and mental habits 
growing out of such conditions, did not rise above a stage 
that would seem very rude to modern men. The castle, 
which the Normans introduced, was a lordly residence 
more imposing than the homely timber dwelling of the 
Saxon thane ; but it cannot have offered more comfort, 
or much more of the means of refinement to domestic 
life. It was not planned to be a home, but 

1 , , The castle. 

a fort, — a stronghold, — a thick-walled inclos- 
ure for fighting men. The light, the air, the chamber- 
room, the privacy, the conveniences, the cheerful and 
pleasant surroundings that we associate with happy fam- 
ily life, were certainly not found behind its grim walls. 

Its one real " living-room," so to speak, was the great 
hall, where everything centred, and which seems to have 
been put to every kind of use. There the long table at 
which all ate together was spread, on trestles which the 
servants removed at the end of the repast. A The castle 
huge salt-cellar, placed conspicuously on the hal1 - 
board, divided the lord of the castle, his family and his 
guests, who sat above it, from those of lower degree, 
who sat below. The viands of the feast were served, 
not on plates, but on thick slices of bread, called trench- 
ers, 1 one of which appears to have been supplied to two 
persons for their common use. Forks were unknown ; 
fingers were used instead. 

The same hall was the scene of all social gatherings 
of the castle, its indoor pastimes, its evening entertain- 
ments, in which wandering minstrels, jugglers, and dan- 

1 .The trencher of bread was displaced in time by one of wood, 
which remained long in use. The name came from the French 
word trancher, to cut. 



192 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 



cers took their parts. Then, when sleeping-time came, 
its floor was strewn with beds of straw, and it became 
the common dormitory of the men of inferior rank. A 
few other bedchambers, for the family and for guests of 
rank, were provided on an upper floor ; but it seems to 
have been the common practice for a number of persons 
to occupy the same room, and beds and furniture were 
primitive in simplicity until quite late in mediaeval times. 
Another lordly residence was the manor-house, which 




MANOR-HOUSE AT MELLICHOPE, SHROPSHIRE, LATTER HALF OF 
TWELFTH CENTURY. 



had preceded the castle, and which began, in the thir- 
teenth century, to supersede it, as a place of habitation. 
The greater lords, possessing many manors, in a scat- 
tered estate, appear to have occupied different 
manor-houses in turn, for the purpose of holding 
their manorial courts, and for using the produce of each 
manor on the spot, as well as for collecting dues and fines. 
As described by Professor J. T. Thorold Rogers, a care- 
ful student of the period, these houses, in the thirteenth 



Manor- 
houses 



MEDIEVAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 193 

and fourteenth centuries, were furnished in an extremely 
scanty way. " Glass, though by no means excessively 
dear, appears to have been rarely used. A table put 
on trestles, and laid aside when out of use, a few forms 
and stools, or a long bench stuffed with straw or wool, 
covered with a straw cushion, . . . with one or two chairs 
of wood or straw, and a chest or two of linen, formed the 
hall furniture. A brass pot or two for boiling, 
and two or three brass dishes ; a few wooden 
platters and trenchers, or more rarely of pewter ; an iron 
or latten * candlestick ; a kitchen knife or two ; a box or 
barrel for salt ; and a brass ewer and basin, formed the 
movables of the ordinary house. The walls were gar- 
nished with mattocks, scythes, reaping hooks, buckets, 
corn measures, and empty sacks. The dormitory con- 
tained a rude bed, and but rarely sheets and blankets, 
for the gown of the day was generally the coverlet at 
night." 2 

In construction and arrangement, as well as in furni- 
ture, both castles and manor-houses were slowly im- 
proved. Fireplaces with chimney flues in the walls 
appear to have come into use at some time during the 
thirteenth century, and must have immensely raised 
the comfort of the better dwellings in winter weather ; 
but heavy " hangings " or draperies of some .< Hang . 
description, on the walls, were always needed in ^ s -" 
by those who could afford so expensive a luxury, to lessen 
the cold draughts of air. 

The manor-house was commonly built of stone ; but 
the tenements surrounding it were structures of the 
rudest sort. " We may believe," Professor Rogers goes 

1 Latten was a mixed metal, differing little from brass, but pre- 
pared in thin sheets for many uses in the Middle Ages. 

2 Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, vol. i. pp. 12, 13. 



194 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 

on to say, that " the peasant's home was built of the 
Peasants* coarsest material, most frequently of wattles 
huts. daubed with mud or clay." Its furnishings 

were as poor and comfortless as the house. " Glass 
was unknown, fuel comparatively dear, and cleanliness 
all but impossible. . . . The purchase of a pound of 
candles would have almost absorbed a workman's daily 
wages." 1 

The town dwellings of prosperous merchants and mas- 
ter-craftsmen were probably improved in comfort quite 
Town as ^ ast as tne manor-houses of the lords. Shop 

dwellings. an( i dwelling were usually, if not always, to- 
gether, the former on the main floor of the building, with 
a booth or open shed in its front, for the displaying and 
sale of wares. The laboring poor of the towns are not 
likely to have fared better than the villein peasantry of 
the country places. 

93. Food and Drink. Little was known in mediaeval 
times of the variety in food that we now enjoy. Except- 
ing meats, which were much the same as in modern times, 
the articles of diet were few, even for those who could 
buy without stint. The methods of preserving meats 
were imperfect ; the sea-salt used was poor in quality 
and very dear. Consequently, it is conjectured, there 
was much eating of flesh and fish in a more or less un- 
wholesome state, and this was probably one cause, at 
least, of such loathsome diseases as leprosy and scurvy, 
which prevailed in that age. Another cause is found in 
the scanty use of vegetable foods. Bread — even wheat 
bread, sometimes mixed with barley — was common on 
the tables of the poorest folk ; but little garden produce 
was raised. Peas, beans, onions, leeks, and possibly cab- 
bage, are said to be the only green stuffs that appear in 
1 Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, vol. i. p. 65. 



MEDIEVAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 195 

the gardening or kitchen records of the time. As for 
fruits, they would seem to have been limited vegetables 
to apples and pears, with a few grapes in south- and fruit - 
ern England, and with the berries that must have grown 
wild. Some dried fruits — figs, raisins, currants, and 
dates — came in, at high prices, from southern Europe, 
among the commodities of foreign trade. 

Sugar had a place with the spices in the list of rare 
luxuries imported from the east. Honey was the sub- 
stitute for it, but even honey was a sweet to be sparingly 
used. A hive of bees was a precious possession, which 
men transmitted to their children by will. 

Ale and cider were the common beverages of those 
who thirsted for more than water. The ale was mostly 
home-brewed, without hops, flavored with various herbs, 
and probably would not be tempting to beer-drinkers of 
the present day. Mead, a stronger drink, much 
in use, was made by sweetening water with 
honey and fermenting it with yeast ; but there were al- 
most none of such highly spirituous and intoxicating 
liquors as the whiskey, gin, rum, and brandy of modern 
times. Some strong distillations of that character, called 
cordials, were little more than medicinally known. Of 
wine-drinking there was not much until after the acces- 
sion of Henry II., whose Angevin dominion embraced the 
most fruitful vineyard regions of France. England then 
became a great market for French wines, espe- wine _ 
daily of those from Bordeaux, and they were drinkin e- 
sold at prices which brought them into extensive use. 
Neither tea nor coffee was heard of until a much later 
day. 

94. Travel and Vagrancy. Roads, neglected since 
Roman times, were increasingly bad ; bridges were few 
and ill-kept ; fords and ferries were the main dependence 



196 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 

for crossing streams. Travel, whether on horseback, or 
in litters swinging between two horses or mules, or in 
heavy springless vehicles, or on foot, can seldom have 
been enjoyed. And yet, in all parts of the country, 
there was evidently much going to and fro. A French 
scholar, M. Jusserand, has made an interesting study of 
wayfaring wnat he calls "English Wayfaring Life " in the 
life. fourteenth century, which shows that an aston- 

ishing number of people, of all classes, was constantly 
in motion on the roads. The lords, as we have seen, 
changed residence often, from manor to manor of their 
scattered estates. The king and his court, for much the 
same reasons, made frequent visitations to different royal 
demesnes. The king's judges, the sheriffs, the bishops, 
all with considerable retinues, were periodically in mo- 
tion from place to place. Still more travel was occasioned 
by the piety or the penance which sent great numbers of 
people on pilgrimages to holy shrines. 

Besides such occasional travellers, there seems to have 
been a swarming vagrant population, which lived an al- 
ways wandering life. It was made up of itinerant traders 
— hawkers and pedlers of numerous wares ; of workmen 
in various industries of a migratory kind ; of 
ers-and mendicant friars, black, white, and grey ; of re- 
ligious quacks, called " pardoners," who sold 
remissions of penance and pretended " indulgences," for 
the absolution of sins ; and of medical quacks, who sold 
nostrums and charms for every kind of bodily cure ; and, 
finally, it embraced in its ranks the many minstrels, jug- 
glers, buffoons, acrobats, and dancers who journeyed from 
hall to hall, to entertain the lords and ladies of high 
degree. 

Hospitality, among those who could afford it, was a 
virtue of the age, and travellers of rank and considera- 



MEDIEVAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 1 97 

tion were welcomed for a night's entertainment at castles, 
manor-houses, and monasteries, as they passed H ospitai- 
on their way. The poor wayfarer, also, found ity - 
shelter and rough fare in the monastery guest-house ; 
but travellers of the middle-class appear to have supped 
and slept with great discomfort in wretched roadside 
inns. 

Royal journeys were something for the country to 
dread. A crowd of followers, often disorderly, trailed 
after the king and court, while a more insolent and alarm- 
ing swarm of official " purveyors " swept on in advance, 
" taking the provisions of the husbandman, or demand- 
ing his services, and paying either at nominal Purvey . 
prices or not at all. Every old woman trem- ance - 
bled for her poultry, and the archbishop in his palace 
trembled for his household and stud, until the king had 
gone by." 1 This oppressive practice of "purveyance," 
rooted in ancient custom, was one of the abuses of 
royalty which the English people had much trouble in 
bringing to a stop. 

95. Monks and Friars. There is a wide difference 
to be kept in mind between the monks and the friars 
of mediaeval times. They belonged to very different 
religious orders, and represented very different religious 
ideas. The monk, like the nun, shut himself in his con- 
vent or monastery, to spend his time in religious exer- 
cises, in study, in making copies of books, and in other 
labors of a worthy kind, if he was a monk of the better 
sort, or to lead an idle and dissolute life, if he proved 
to be such a monk as some were said to have become. 
The friar, 2 on the contrary, was vowed to a life of pov- 
erty and of humble missionary labor among the poor and 

1 Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, vol. ii. p. 423. 

2 The name " friar " is a corruption of the French frkre, brother. 



198 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 

wretched of the world. He was to shelter himself under 
no roof of his own ; he was to trust to charity for his 
daily bread. 

The oldest order of the mendicant brothers was 
founded in 12 10, by St. Francis of Assisi, who looked 
upon wealth as literally the root of all evil, and its renun- 
ciation as the first duty of one who would do the work 
of Christ. He called his followers fratres miuorcs, the 
Francis- lesser brethren, to indicate their humbleness as 
cans. a f ra ternity, taking the lowest place. From 

this they were sometimes known as Minorites, but more 
commonly as Franciscans, from their founder, or as Grey 
Friars, from their garb. A second mendicant order, that 
of the Dominicans, or Black Friars, devoted to preaching 
Domini- rather than to charitable labors, but equally 
cans. vowed to poverty, was founded by St. Dominic 

at nearly the same time. The Carmelites, or White 
Friars, were a third order, which arose in the east. 

The Dominicans were the first to enter England, which 
they did in 1220. Two years later, the first Franciscans 
came. The latter won the hearts of the common people 
in an extraordinary way, by their self-sacrificing labors 
among the sick, the sorrowful, the sinful, and the poor. 
At the same time they commanded the esteem of the 
highest in church and state and in the schools. Simon 
de Montfort was in close friendship with one of the 
Franciscan brothers ; Bishop Grosseteste, the best of 
the English prelates of that time, gave them hearty sup- 
port ; Roger Bacon, the most learned man of his age, 
joined their ranks. For some years they exerted a pow- 
erful influence in England for good. Then the Christ 
like spirit that St. Francis had infused into the order was 
spent. The friars accepted gifts of houses and lands, 
to be owned in other names, and thus they enjoyed the 



MEDIEVAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 199 

use of wealth which they pretended not to possess. So 
they fell into disrepute. In the fourteenth century, they 
were more scorned and disliked than the monks. 

96. Sports and Pastimes. Hunting and hawking 
were the favorite sports of the noble class, but denied 
to the common people. The latter, then as now, were 
much given to athletic pastimes, — wrestling, boxing, 
leaping, running, and field games of various kinds. All 
classes were fond, of the dance, which seems to have 
been practised much less within doors than in the open 
air. Games of chess, draughts, and dicing were among 
the early indoor amusements, and playing-cards were 
introduced at some time during the fourteenth century. 

There was always delight in music among the Eng- 
lish people, and various instruments were played ; but, 
undoubtedly, there was much simplicity in the musical 
art. Church organs, of not many pipes and stops, were 
an early invention ; the harp and the rote, 

IVIusic. 

which was a smaller kind of harp ; the viol and 

the gigue, primitive forms of the violin ; the lute, which 

took in later times the better form of the guitar ; the 

tabor and the drum ; the bagpipe, the flageolet, and the 

horn, — were among the sources of music in mediaeval 

times. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

91. Norman Influence on English Civilization. 
Topics. 

1. Social state of Norman invaders. 

2. Social state of English. 

3. Attitude of the two races toward each other. 
References. — Bright, i. 36-38; Green, 90-93 ; Guest, 134, 135; 

Freeman, S. H. N. C, ch. xiv. ; Johnson, N. E., 1151-173. 



200 MEDIAEVAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 

92. Mediaeval Habitations. 
Topics. 

i. Dwellings of the lords: a, the castle; b, the castle hall; c, 
manor-houses ; d, house furnishings. 

2. Dwellings of the peasantry. 

3. Dwellings of the townsmen. 

References. — Bright, i. 263; Guest, 144; Gibbins, 19; Traill, i. 
381, 382. 

93. Food and Drink. 
Topics. 

1. Lack of variety. 

2. Meats, garden products, fruits, etc. 

3. Beverages. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 75-77; Bright, i. 264; Gibbins, 44, 
45 ; Guest, 89. 90, 166, 228, 239, 288, 289; Rogers, 59-63, 77-S6; 
Traill, i. 225, 226, 475-478, ii. 118, 119, 432-438. 

94. Travel and Vagrancy. 
Topics. 

1. Conditions of travel. 

2. Movements of lords and others. 

3. Wandering population. 

4. Hospitality. 

5. Royal journeys. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 272-277; Rogers, 133-138; Traill, i. 
489. 

95. Monks and Friars. 
Topics. 

1. Difference between monks and friars. 

2. The Franciscan friars. 

3. The Dominican friars. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 190-192; Green, 147-152: Guest, 21 1- 
213, 280-282; Gibbins, 75, 76; Rogers, 163, 248-251. 

96. Sports and Pastimes. 
Topics. 

1. Amusements : a. of the nobles ; I?, of the people. 

2. Music and musical instruments. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 201 



LINEAGE OF THE LATER PLANTAGENET KINGS OF 
ENGLAND. 



Henry III., 

1216-1272, 

married 

Eleanor 

of Provence. 



Edward I., f Edward II., | Edward III. 

1272-1307, j 1307-1327, I 1327-1377, 

married «| married ■{ married 

Eleanor Isabella Philippa 

of Castile, y of France. [ of Hainault. 



Edmund, 

Earl 

of Lancaster. 



Richard II. 
'377-1399- 



Edward, 

{The 

Black Prince), 

died 1376, 

married 

Joan of Kent. 

Lionel, f Philippa, 

Duke married 

of Clarence, Edmund 

died 136S, -J Mortimer, 

married Earl 

Elizabeth of March. 

de Burgh. 

John of Gaunt, { Henry, 
died 1399, Duke 

married -J of Lancaster, 
1. Blanche j afterwards 

of Lancaster ; { Henry IV. 



2. Constance 
of Castile ; 


f John 
Beaufort, 


3. Catherine 
Swynford. 


Earl 
\ of Somerset 




Cardinal 




I Beaufort. 




f Richard, 


Edmund, 


Earl of 


Duke of 1 'ork, 
died 1402. 


\ Cambridge, 

beheaded 


Thomas, 


I 1415- 


Duke 




of Gloucester, 
died 1397. 





( Henry, ( Henry, ( 
\ Earl \ Duke \ 

( of Lancaster. ( of Lancaster. ( 



Henry, ( Blanche, 
Duke < married 

if Lancaster. ( John of Gaunt. 
(See above.) 



SURVEY OF GENERAL HISTORY. 

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 

The fifteenth century is marked above most others by 
two occurrences that rank among the few supreme events in 
human history. They are the invention of printing and the 
beginning of a true geographical knowledge of the world. 

The Invention of Printing. The first known impression of 
printed words from movable type was made at Mayence, in 
1454 ; in 1455, the first Bible was printed : in 1467, the print- 
ing-press was working at Rome; in 1469, at Venice ; in 1470, 
at Paris; in 1477, at London, before which last-named date 
it was busy in half the cities of Italy, Germany, the Nether- 
lands, and France. Thus quickly did the new art spread the 
learning and thought of the time, to fertilize the whole Euro- 
pean mind. 

Geographical Discovery. The geographical discoveries that 
soon followed were probably more exciting to the interest and 
imagination of mankind than any others that ever happened, 
before or since. Through all the later half of the century, 
Portuguese exploration down the long west-African coast, 
creeping from point to point, seeking the extremity of the 
continent, was being watched with vague hopes. Then came 
(1492) the bold voyage of Columbus into the open Atlantic, 
with his amazing discovery of lands supposed to belong to 
the Asiatic side of the world ; and then, again, quickly fol- 
lowing (1497), the final success of the Portuguese Vasco da 
Gama in rounding the African continent, whereby the India 
that Columbus sought was actually reached. For commerce 
with the east a better route was suddenly opened ; for ambi- 
tion and adventure there were new, mysterious, enticing, 



THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 203 

boundless fields disclosed. All the conceptions, the reason- 
ings, the imaginings of men were expanded by the vision of 
a wider world than they had dreamed of before ; and all the 
energies of their nature were challenged to finish the quest 
they had begun. 

Birth of the Modern Era. Stimulations so prodigious were 
never, at any other time, brought to bear on all sides of human 
spirit and faculty at once ; and though their visibly revolution- 
ary effects were wrought in the next century, it is on the face 
of the fifteenth that they mark the ending of Mediaeval and 
the beginning of Modern life, — the Renaissance, or new birth 
of the European world. 

Revival of Classic Learning. The printing-press gave power- 
ful effects to another event, which occurred at the moment of 
its invention. This was the capture of Constantinople by the 
Turks (1453), which sent great numbers of Greek scholars in 
flight to western Europe, to become teachers of the language 
and literature of ancient Greece, and to bring precious man- 
uscripts, which the press began instantly to copy for eager 
students far and wide. This opened a new world of ideas, 
and gave learning a new range. 

Italy. Italy was better prepared than other countries for 
the finer stimulations of the time, and all culture was aston- 
ishingly ripened there ; but the Italian genius found expres- 
sion less in Letters than in Art. Painting and sculpture were 
raised to nearly their most inspired height before the century 
closed. Art flourished, learning gained, wealth increased, life 
was in many ways refined, but liberty was gone from the land. 
Princely patrons had risen, who gave munificent encourage- 
ment to the scholar and the artist, but they had risen on the 
ruined republican freedom of former days. Even democratic 
Florence had sunk under the rule of a great family, the famous 
Medicis, princeliest in patronage of all ; and the Medicean 
splendors that fill the city are a poor indemnity for the Flor- 
entine free spirit that died at their feet. 

The Revelation of Italian Culture to the North. Towards 



204 GENERAL HISTORY. 

the end of the century, a king of France (Charles VIII.), 
lured into a ceaseless war that went on in southern Italy, 
over the Neapolitan kingdom, crossed the Alps with an army 
which he led like a conqueror to Naples, through Florence 
and Rome. He gained no footing in the peninsula, and soon 
retreated with heavy loss ; but his army carried loads of artis- 
tic plunder back to France, with a knowledge of the Italian 
refinements of life which is thought to have had a great influ- 
ence upon civilization beyond the Alps. Michelet, the French 
historian, calls this expedition a revelation of Italy to the 
nations of the north. 

France. France had then become a quite solidified monar- 
chical state. It had been, in the first half of the century, 
more than ever broken down by a wicked renewal of English 
attacks (as told in chapter X.), but had recovered with amaz- 
ing vital strength. Fortune gave it a crafty king (Louis XL), 
who undermined, rather than broke, the dangerous power 
of dukes and counts, and who set the French monarchy on 
the way to absolutism, which it reached very soon. He did 
this, moreover, at a time when one of the ducal families of 
France — the Burgundian — had grown to a strength and 
influence in Europe that far exceeded his own. 

The Burgundian Dominion. The ducal house of Burgundy, 
branching in the last century from the royal family of France, 
had married so shrewdly, and grasped inheritances with such 
success, that its original French domain was the least part of 
the great territory that it ruled. One by one the rich counties 
of the Netherlands, both Flemish and Dutch, had fallen into 
its hands, along with many rich provinces besides. The Duke 
of Burgundy with whom Louis XL contended, known in his- 
tory as Charles the Bold, was the wealthiest prince of his 
time, and might easily, with wisdom, have wielded the great- 
est power. But Louis involved him in a war with the Swiss 
which cost him his life. Then the crafty king found it easy to 
take most of her French fiefs from Duchess Mary, the duke's 
daughter and heir. 



THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 205 

The Netherlands, which remained to the Duchess Mary, 
were a splendid inheritance in themselves. By her marriage 
to Maximilian of Austria (son of the then emperor, Frederick 
III.), and by the subsequent marriage of her son Philip to a 
Spanish princess, the hapless people of those thriving pro- 
vinces were cruelly dragged into the clutches of an Aus- 
trian-Spanish power, which became in the next century the 
deadliest despotism in the world. 

Spain. In 1469, by marriage of Ferdinand, King of Aragon, 
and Isabella, Queen of Castile, the Spanish monarchy was 
practically formed. Twenty-three years later, the last Moor- 
ish city and petty kingdom in Spain was surrendered to the 
wedded sovereigns, and their rule was undisputed from the 
Pyrenees to the Mediterranean Sea. In that same year 
(1492), the long quest of Columbus for a patron who would 
help him to the discovery of new worlds beyond the untrav- 
ersed ocean was ended, and Queen Isabella, by her faith, 
won the great Spanish- American realm. Then (1496) came 
young Archduke Philip, with his Burgundian inheritance of 
the Netherlands, with his Austrian heirship, with his imperial 
lineage, and his family lien on the Cerman imperial crown, 
to wed the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand, and to bring 
that whole vast assemblage of Spanish, Austrian, and Burgun- 
dian dominions, in Europe and America, under the sceptre 
of his son (Charles V.). 

Germany. The elective kingship of Germany, and the im- 
perial title joined to it, returned in 1437 to tne House of 
Austria, never to be taken from its princes again. But the 
emperor was almost the poorest of the sovereigns of Europe 
and the least to be feared. The empire was still a shadow 
cast on Gerrnany with blighting effects. That country made 
no political advance ; but the intellectual hunger of the time 
was manifested nowhere, beyond Italy, more than among the 
German people. They invented the printed book, and great 
numbers in every class were learning to read it ; they were 
founding universities ; they were cultivating the arts ; but 
literature, in the finer sense, was still at a declining stage. 



206 GENERAL HISTORY. 

Other Countries. The confederacy of the Swiss cantons 
was enlarged in this century, and fought successfully with 
the Austrian and Burgundian dukes. Hungary waged a long, 
desperate war with the Turks. Poland was rising in impor- 
tance as a kingdom. The Muscovite principality, out of which 
the Russian empire was to grow, broke the yoke of the Tar- 
tars and began to extend its power. The Scandinavian king- 
doms of the north were in an unsettled state. 

The Church. Early in the century the Great Schism in the 
church was brought to an end by a general council at Con- 
stance, which deposed the rival popes and elected one whose 
title was acknowledged by all. The new pope and several of 
his successors were men of high character, and the papacy 
was restored for a time to respect. But in the later half of 
the century a series of papal elections, controlled by bribery 
and fraud, raised men of infamous wickedness to the head- 
ship of the Christian church. Alexander VI., the Borgia of 
detested memory, was one of these, and only worse by a few 
degrees than some who went before him and some who came 
after. Their scandalous government of Christendom was one 
of the prime causes of the great movement of religious revo- 
lution in the next century which is known as The Reformation. 

But lesser revolts had occurred long before. Wiclif's teach- 
ing in England, conveyed to Bohemia by the queen of the 
English King Richard II., raised up the Bohemian reformers, 
Hus and Jerome. Both were condemned for heresy by the 
Council of Constance and burned at the stake ; but their 
death only fired the spirit of revolt among their countrymen, 
and Bohemia, for half a century, was the scene of frightful 
religious wars. In the last decade of the century, the city 
of Florence was stirred to its depths by the fervid preaching 
of the monk Savonarola, who denounced the corruptions in 
the church, and brought about a very strange revolution, half 
religious, half political ; but he, too, was burned. For the 
stifling of such movements, the terrible enginery of the In- 
quisition was revived in Spain. 



CHAPTER X. 

PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 

Lancastrian Kings : Henry IV. — Henry V. — Henry 
VI. 1399-1450. 

97. The Disputed Title of Henry IV. Feudal ideas 
of hereditary right had so far gained force in England 
that the parliamentary election which made Henry of 
Lancaster king did not give him an undisputed title to 
the crown. By the rules of inheritance it would have 
gone to another. After Richard, he was not the next in 
descent from Edward III. ; for his father, John of Gaunt, 
had an elder brother, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, who 
died early, but who left a daughter, married to Edmund 
Mortimer, Earl of March, whose grandson, of the same 
name and title, had been recognized by Richard II. as 
his heir. So distinct a denial of hereditary right as was 
given in the coronation of Henry was certain to be con- 
tested, and circumstances prolonged the contest through 
almost a hundred years, producing a dismal period of 
civil war. 

Reigning by act of Parliament, Henry IV. was neces- 
sarily a constitutional king. It was the good-will of 
Parliament, representing at least a passive willingness 
in the nation, that upheld him on the throne against 
repeated rebellions and conspiracies among the greater 
lords. Their first plot, discovered early in 1400, was 
crushed by popular action and its leaders slain, without 
need of any measures by the king. Soon afterwards, the 



208 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1400-1403 



deposed King Richard died mysteriously in his prison at 
Death of Pomfret. A report was given out that he had 
Richard 11. s t arV ed himself ; but suspicions of murder were 
rife, though Henry made a solemn declaration that he 
was innocent of Richard's death. 

98. Rebellion and War. More troublesome than 
these suspicions of murder was a story that Richard was 

not dead, but had es- 
caped and was in Scot- 
land, where some one 
resembling him was ac- 
tually kept at court, as 
a pretender to the Eng- 
lish throne. The Welsh 
were more hostile still. 
Under Owen Glendow- 
er, a descendant from 
Llywelyn, the 
last native 
Prince of Wales, they 
rose in 1402 and began 
attacks on the English 
borderland. 

While Henry was en- 
gaged with the Welsh, 
the Scots invaded Northumberland, but were met by the 
Earl of Northumberland and his fiery son, Henry Percy, 
called Hotspur, who defeated them at Homil- 
don Hill. The Percies had been the most pow- 
erful of Henry's partisans ; but something occurred at 
this time which touched their haughty temper, causing 
a quarrel and a rebellion, in which the formidable family 
and its connections were leagued with Glendower and the 
Scots. Henry faced the crisis with great energy and 




Glendower. 



HENRY IV. 



Hotspur. 



1370-1423] PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 209 

received hearty support. The rebels were defeated at 
Shrewsbury (July, 1403) and Hotspur was slain. 

The Welsh continued to be troublesome, and Henry 
was not fortunate in his undertakings against them. 
They received aid from France, where great disorder 
prevailed. The truce made by Richard II. 
had been broken ; the kingdom was being torn tions in 
by the contests of the two factions, Burgundian 
and Armagnac, that contended for power ; Henry med- 
dled in their conflicts, but seems to have had no fixed 
policy or aim. 

99. Origin of the Stuart Family in Scotland. 
When Scotland was last mentioned in this history its 
king was David II., son of the national hero, Robert 
Bruce. David died in 1370, leaving no offspring. His 
sister, Margaret, had married the High Steward of Scot- 
land, whose family name was Allan, or Fitz Allan, but 
who was called in common speech Robert Stewart, or 
Stuart, in allusion to his office, until that came to be the 
surname accepted by his house. The son of this Robert 
Stuart and Margaret Bruce became king when David 
Bruce died, beginning the line of Stuart kings and 
queens, who played a long and notable part in Scottish 
and English history. The second of the Stuart dynasty, 
Robert III., reigned in Scotland when Henry IV. came to 
the English throne. In 1405, his young son and heir 
was being sent for education to France, when the vessel 
that bore him was captured by an English ship, captivity 
The father died the next year, and the cap- ofJamesL 
tive prince was recognized as king (James I.), though 
held until 1423 as a hostage at the English court. His 
uncle, the Duke of Albany, governed Scotland as regent 
meantime, and was not anxious for his release. 

100. Persecution of the Lollards. The Lollards had 



2IO THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1401-1406 

been in favor at the court of Richard II. His queen, 
Anne of Bohemia, and some men of high influence in 
the late reign, were counted among them, and evidently 
they were suspected of being, as a body, unfriendly to 
the new king. How far they gave him reason to fear 
them, by any disloyal movements, is not known ; but it 
is clear that political feeling made him ready to listen to 
demands for their persecution from the church. So it 
happens that Henry IV., who was neither a bigoted nor 

a cruel man, has the dreadful distinction of 
ingatthe being the first to kindle fires of martyrdom on 

English soil. They were lighted, in 1401, by a 
special order of king and council for the burning of one 
William Sawtre, a Wiclifite priest. Soon afterwards, the 
first English statute for the " burning of heretics " was 
enacted in Parliament ; but there seems to have been 
little zeal in carrying it out. 

101. The Strengthening of Parliament. Henry IV., 
says Bishop Stubbs, " governed by the help of his Parlia- 
ment, with the executive aid of a council over which 
Parliament both claimed and exercised control. Never 
before and never again for more than two hundred years 
were the Commons as strong as they were under Henry 
IV." 1 More successfully than in any previous reign, the 
Commons asserted their right to originate all acts impos- 
ing taxes, and to make the granting of supplies to the 
king dependent on the satisfying of their complaints and 
claims. They guarded the official enrolment of their 
acts against such tampering with the language as seems 
to have been possible before. They established their 
right to control the election of members of their House, 
and they made the election so democratic that every 
freeman who would take the trouble to be present at the 
1 Stubbs, Constitutional Hist, of Eng., ch. xviii. 



1406-1411] PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 211 

county court when knights of the shire were chosen had 
a vote. They took the first effective steps towards in- 
suring to members of Parliament the freedom of speech 
and freedom from arrest that are the most important of 
the " privileges " on which parliamentary independence 
depends. In 1406, they presented to the king a petition 
of thirty-one articles, embodying the most thorough and 
well-defined scheme of constitutional government that 
had yet been set forth. Its ready and complete accept- 
ance by the king marks the new character of his reign. 

102. The Prince of Wales. In his last years, King 
Henry was afflicted with some dreadful disease, which 
often disabled him, and which appears to have thrown 
unusual duties on his eldest son and namesake, Henry, 
Prince of Wales. The prince was but eighteen or nine- 
teen years old when he was called to a seat in the Privy 
Council. A little later, he was practically for two years 
the head of the government. At that period, it cannot 
be believed that he was the dissolute and reckless youth 
which tradition represented, and which Shakespeare has 
depicted in his "King Henry Fourth." Some The Prince 
ground he must have given, perhaps at an ^fake- 
earlier time, for stories of wild behavior ; but s P eare - 
the historian who has studied the records of the reign of 
Henry IV. most minutely concludes that " the legends 
of his cut-pursing " and " other such thievish living on 
the common road," with companions like Shakespeare's 
Falstaff, " are late literary embellishments." 1 They are 
made improbable by his after life, in which no sign of a 
vicious character appears. 

In 141 1, two years before the king's death, some 
cause of estrangement arose between him and the prince, 
and the latter left the council. The next year they were 
1 Wylie, Hist, of Eng. under Henry IV., ch. xciv. 



212 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 



['4i3 



reconciled, the father being then very ill and near to 
death. Early in 141 3, the suffering king died, and his 
son succeeded him, quite evidently to the satisfaction of 
the kingdom. 

103. The Character of Henry V. Immediately on 
coming to the throne, the young king showed a generous 
character by setting free the Earl of March, true heir 
to the crown, as many believed, whom his more jealous 

father had kept in confinement 
throughout the late reign. 
A little later he restored to 
the heir of the Percies his 
title and estates. These acts, 
significant of a high, cour- 
ageous, self-confident spirit, 
betokened, too, the kind of 
mediaeval magnanimity that he 
possessed, which was purely 
chivalric, like that of the Black 
Prince, and which took little 
account of the sufferings of 
henry v. common people. He was en- 

tirely a hero of the type of 
the Middle Ages, untouched by the modern spirit then 
beginning to make itself felt. He presents a striking- 
figure, a brilliant personality, in English history, but not 
to be ranked, as some would place him, among its greater 
men. His ambition was as empty of wisdom and true 
patriotism as that of Richard Cceur de Lion, and more 
so than that of Edward III., whose foolish pretensions 
he revived. 

At the outset of his reign, Henry showed hostility to 
the Lollards, and ere long they were accused of having 
formed rebellious plans. He took measures with char- 




1413-1415] PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 213 

acteristic vigor, attacking a crowd assembled in the fields 
at St. Giles's Church, killing some, taking some Renewed 
prisoners, and bringing a number afterwards to ticm of U " 
the gallows and the stake. That there was a LoUards - 
really treasonable movement, needing so much severity, 
is open to doubt. A fresh statute against the Lollards 
was procured from Parliament, their writings were sup- 
pressed, and they soon ceased to be known as an acknow- 
ledged party or sect. 

104. The New Attempt against France. But one 
ambition showed itself in Henry's mind after he became 
king, and that was to revive and make good the wicked 
and foolish claim to the French crown which his great- 
grandfather, Edward III., had set up. As soon as pos- 
sible he prepared for this. If the project was barbar- 
ously wrong, he alone was not responsible for it. Plainly 
he was encouraged to it by English national feeling, and 
the momentary, empty, misery-making success he ob- 
tained gave him the most rapturous affection that the 
English people have ever bestowed on one of their kings. 

The deplorable condition of France seemed to make 
that kingdom an easy prey. In the fury of its The state 
factions all patriotism was being consumed. ofFrance - 
Armagnacs and Burgundians were equally ready to ally 
themselves with their country's foe. 

The army of 30,000 men with which Henry entered 
France, in August, 141 5, was remarkably well organ- 
ized and equipped, even a medical and surgical staff 
being brought into service for the first time. Yet it 
came near to being wrecked by disease at the beginning 
of its campaign. Five weeks were spent in the siege 
and capture of Harfleur, near the mouth of the 

n • ii r 1 11 Harfleur. 

beine, and so large a part of the army was dead 

or disabled when the town surrendered that nothing fur- 



214 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1415 

ther could be undertaken ; yet the king set out on a 
useless and hazardous long march to the English strong- 
hold of Calais. The French had gathered forces behind 
the river Somme, to prevent his crossing, but he suc- 
ceeded, after making a long detour, in passing the stream. 

At the little village of Agincourt, or Azincourt, he 
found the enemy in his front, and there, on the 25th of 
October, 141 5, he won another of the victories which, 
for three hundred years, were the Englishmen's chief 
Battle of glory and pride. His army was outnumbered 
Agincourt. ^y not j ess j- nan three or four to one, and prob- 
ably by more ; but again, as at Crecy, the training of the 
citizen was put on trial against the training of the vassal, 
— the nationalized spirit against the feudalized, — and 
the result was the same. The French had learned 
nothing since they met the English before ; their array 
was as clumsy, their bravery as much wasted in planless 
fighting as ever. The compact, well-disciplined body of 
the English, mostly archers, with their terrible bows, 
was placed and handled, no doubt, with admirable skill ; 
but the astounding slaughter of probably 10,000 on the 
side of the French, including the flower of their chivalry, 
and princes and nobles in great number, against the loss 
of a few hundred of the English, was due in great mea- 
sure to a muddy clay on the battle-ground, in which the 
French horsemen could scarcely move. 

Agincourt ended the opposition to Henry's march ; it 
made mourning and discouragement in France ; it elated 
the English beyond measure ; but it accomplished no 
more. Henry returned from Calais to London, to be 
received with wild joy, and to be the most popular of 
kings. 

105. Henry's Triumphs and his Death. Nearly two 
years passed before Henry made further attempts at the 



1417-142°] PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 215 

conquest of France. Its factions, meantime, were doing 
what they could to make his task easy. In August, 
14 17, he sailed again from Southampton, with a fine 
army, more than 25,000 strong, and landed again near 
the mouth of the Seine. Armagnacs and Burgundians 
were busy at war with each other and allowed him to 
advance. He found no resistance except at the forti- 
fied towns, which he besieged in turn. Caen was de- 
fended stoutly, but he carried it by storm. Before the 
end of the year a great part of Normandy was submis- 
sive to him and had been parcelled out among English 
lords. The next May he proceeded against the great 
and strong city of Rouen, and starved it into Sie geof 
surrender, after a siege which lasted until Jan- Rouen - 
uary, 14 19. To save their food, the garrison thrust 
12,000 old men, women, and children outside of the 
town ; Henry would not let them pass through his lines, 
and they slowly perished under the walls. Such was the 
barbarity of mediaeval war. 

Attempts, after Rouen fell, to make peace between 
the French factions resulted in a treacherous assassina- 
tion of the Duke of Burgundy, causing fiercer hatreds 
than before. The duke's son and successor then allied 
himself and his party with the English, and they jointly 
made war on the French king's son and heir (called the 
dauphin), who now headed the opposite party. The 
By the action of the Duke of Burgundy and the dau P hin - 
death of the Duke of Armagnac, the dauphin became 
really a national leader, his following no longer a faction, 
his cause the cause of France. Such patriotic feeling as 
survived in the ruined country was rallied to his support ; 
but he was only a boy, and there was nothing inspiring 
in his character as he grew to be a man. 

The French queen, Isabel, joined Burgundy in the 



2l6 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1420-1422 

English alliance, against her own son, the dauphin, and 
Treaty of m Ma Y» : 4 2 o> a treaty was signed at Troyes 
Troyes. which gave her daughter, the Princess Catherine 
of France, in marriage to King Henry, made him regent 
of the kingdom during King Charles's life, and pledged 
the crown of France to him on the latter's death. The 
marriage followed immediately, and, after some months, 
the king returned to London with his bride. 

In Henry's absence, the English suffered reverses in 
France, and he was called back early in the summer of 
142 1. During the year that followed, he pressed the siege 
of cities that were held for the dauphin, with constant 
success, until the north of France was under his control. 
In May, 1422, Queen Catherine, who had given birth to 
a son the preceding December, joined him with her 
child, and they held court at Paris. The king was ill at 
this time, but after a few weeks of rest he resolutely set 
out to return to the army and resume command. Death 
Death of overtook him on the way, and he expired on the 
Henry v. i ast c ] a y f August, at Vincennes, leaving an 
infant son, nine months old, to inherit the two crowns 
which he claimed. Before Henry's body had been laid at 
rest in Westminster Abbey, Charles VI. of France was 
dead, and Charles VII. (lately the dauphin) was fighting 
for his inheritance with little energy and with scanty 
support. 

106. Henry VI. and his Uncles. The infant king, 
Henry VI. of England and Henry II. of France, as his 
titles ran, destined to the most sorrowful of lives and 
the most disastrous of reigns, was in one respect more 
fortunate than Richard II., for he had an uncle who 
proved as faithful to him as a father could be. Had both 
the living brothers of his father been equally true, there 
might have been a happier half-century in England, if 



1422-1429] 



PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 



217 



not in France. John, Duke of Bedford, the elder uncle 
of the young king, was an able statesman, a 
capable soldier, and an honest, unselfish man. and 
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the younger 
uncle, had more showy talents and more popular man- 
ners, with a selfish nature and a scheming mind. 

The Duke of Bedford was appointed Protector of the 
English kingdom by 
Parliament ; but he re- 
mained in France, ruling 
half that realm in his 
nephew's name, and 
pushing the war of con- 
quest for some time with 
success. His selfish bro- 
ther, Gloucester, who 
acted for him in Eng- 
land, opened mischiev- 
ous quarrels, with Bishop 
Beaufort, the English 
chancellor, on one side 
of the Channel, and with 
Bedford's important ally, 
the Duke of Burgundy, on the other ; yet the protector, 
acting wisely and well, made head against these difficul- 
ties for a number of years. 

107. The Maid of Orleans. But in 1429 a strange 
event occurred, which suddenly and wonderfully changed 
the situation in France. The king, Charles VII., who 
led an idle and frivolous life, was incapable of wakening 
any hope for the country by any faith in himself. Seem- 
ingly nothing but a miracle, or belief in one, could rouse 
the unhappy nation from the despairing state in which it 
was sunk. The miracle happened, or a semblance of it 




JOHN, DUKE OF BEDFORD. 



218 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. 



[1429 



produced miraculous effects. A pure-minded and pious 
young peasant girl of Lorraine, Jeanne d'Arc, called Joan 
of Arc by the English, and known in history as the 
Maid of Orleans, brooded over the calamities of the coun- 
try until she came to believe that God had commanded 
.her to deliver it. Her simple and earnest faith in her 
own mission could hardly have inspired belief in others, 
or led her to a successful course, if the modest Maid had 




'• M,, J ^diterra^ 



FRENCH TERRITORY HELD BY THE ENGLISH WHEN JOAN OF ARC 
APPEARED, 1429. 

not been gifted with a wise mind as well as with a beau- 
tiful spirit, and with marvellous courage as well as a per- 
fect humbleness of trust in God. Overcoming all obsta- 
cles, she made her way to the king, and he was persuaded 
to send her with an army to the relief of the city of 
Orleans, which the English had besieged for months. 
Gently and sweetly, but as one to whom authority had 



1429] 



PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 



219 



been given, she bore down every doubt of her heavenly 
mission by the confidence with which she took command. 
The rudest soldiers were awed and mastered by the won- 
derful girl. She reformed their conduct, disci- j oa nof Arc 
plined camp and garrison, expelled vicious fol- at0rleans - 
lowers, and raised enthusiasm to the highest pitch. Clad in 
armor, she led assaults upon the besieger's lines, and took 
part in the fighting like a fearless knight. The French 
revered her as a saint ; the English feared her as a witch. 
Orleans was saved and the saintly Maid had delivered 
it. Nothing then seemed impossible. 
She conducted the passive king to the 
royal city of Rheims, in the far north 
of the kingdom, to be crowned and 
anointed there, according to the custom 
of the kings of France. Towns opened 
their gates ; the Eng- 
lish gave way ; the 
king's path to his 
crown was cleared. 
When she Crowning 
had seen it of the king. 

placed solemnly on his 
head she thought her 
mission ended, and 
would have returned 
to her humble home ; 
but the king and his 
court would not let 
her go. And yet they 
tired of following her 
wise advice. She 
urged the indolent 
statue of joan of arc. Charles to march 




220 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1430-1435 



quickly and straight on Paris, but he would not. His 
generals had grown jealous ; the old state of things was 
coming back. Jeanne did what she could, hampered on 
all sides ; but the end of it was that she was captured by 
the forces of the Duke of Burgundy, with no effort to 
save her on the part of her friends, and was sold by the 
duke to the English. This happened in May, 1430. 
Persuaded by the superstition of the age that the Maid 
had been an agent of evil powers, the English had her 
tried as a witch. She was accused by the Uni- 

Martyr- . 

domofthe versity of Pans, condemned by her judges, and 
cruelly burned at Rouen. It is the one great 
blot on the otherwise fair fame of the Duke of Bedford, 
that he permitted this foul thing to be done ; and it is 
the shame, far more, of the heartless King of France, 
that he made no attempt to save the martyred Maid. 
108. Expulsion of the English from France. The 

burning of Jeanne 
d'Arc brought no re- 
covery of success to 
the English arms. 
Slowly but surely 
they lost ground from 
year to year, and feel- 
ing turned against 
the war. In 1435, 
Bedford died, and 
after that the English 
situation in France 
grew rapidly worse. 
The Duke of Burgundy, whose dominions had been en- 
larged, and who had become a very powerful prince, now 
leagued himself with the French king. When Henry 
VI. came to manhood, gentle in nature, weak in will, 




MARGARET OF ANJOU, FROM AN OLD MS. 



1435-1449] PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 221 

religious in disposition, he longed for peace ; but he was 
surrounded by counsellors who would let him yield no- 
thing that the English held, though what they held grew 
less and less. In 1444, however, his ministers arranged 
a truce, and a marriage of the young king to a French 
princess of important rank, Margaret of Anjou, Margaret 
daughter of Rene, Duke of Anjou, who bore the of An J° u - 
empty title of King of Sicily and Jerusalem. The mar- 
riage was unpopular and had no effect in bringing peace. 
War was renewed, in 1449, so disastrously to the English 
that within two years they were driven from every foot 
of French soil, except their stronghold of Calais. Even 
their old possessions in Aquitaine were lost. So nothing 
had been gained by the hundred years of war, which a 
vain ambition began and a vainer ambition renewed. 

109. Rising Troubles in England. While losing their 
conquests in France the English were preparing troubles 
for themselves at home. As long as Bedford lived, his 
influence put some check on the rivalries that rose 
among the chiefs of great families, when the sceptre of 
nominal sovereignty had passed to the hand of a helpless 
child, growing up to be a weak and incapable man. Of 
such families there were several that boasted royal blood 
and were very near to the throne. The descent of one 
among them was more royal, in the hereditary view, than 
that of the reigning Lancastrian house. It united two 
lines from Edward III., one coming from his second son, 
the Duke of Clarence (whose last male descendant was 
that Earl of March whom Henry IV. imprisoned and 
Henry V. set free — see sections 97 and 103) ; 
the other from Edward's fourth son, the Duke York, 
of York. By marriage with the sister of the and 
Earl of March, the House of York had sue- NeviUe - 
ceeded to the latter' s claims. The Beauforts were a 



222 THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM. [1435-1449 

younger branch of the Lancastrian house, being of de- 
scent from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, by his 
third wife. Still another Lancastrian offshoot was the 
family of the Nevilles, which had acquired a royal lineage 
by the marriage of Ralph Neville, Duke of Westmore- 
land, with a daughter 
of John of Gaunt. In 
the female line, the 
Nevilles had allied 
themselves by mar- 
riage with the House 
j^ N HI of York ; on the other 

side, in the male line, 
they had secured by 
marriage the earldom 
of Warwick, and were 
a power in the realm. 
On the surface of its 
events, the political 
history of England 
for fifty years after 
Bedford died is large- 

HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. J~ 

ly filled with strifes 
in which these families were the moving spirits and the 
actors most in view. 

The contentions of Bishop (afterwards Cardinal) Beau- 
fort with the young king's uncle, Gloucester, have been 
mentioned already. Beaufort was a statesman and a 
patriotic man. His death, in 1447, was a fresh misfor- 
tune to England ; the death of Gloucester, in the same 
year, was a relief. The cardinal's nephew, who was 
Duke of Somerset, lacked his uncle's ability and char- 
acter, but was ambitious to exercise his power. He con- 
tested the control of the government, first with the Earl 




i4So] PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 223 

of Suffolk (who was overthrown and foully murdered in 
1450), and then with the Duke of York, whose appear- 
ance on the scene of strife opens the long and bloody 
conflict between the Houses of Lancaster and York. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

97. The Disputed Title of Henry IV. 

Topics. 

1. Claims to the throne of Henry and Edmund Mortimer. 

2. Henry a constitutional king. 

3. The first plot and the death of Richard II. 
Reference. — Gardiner, i. 286, 287. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Show from the genealogical table 
on page 227 the respective claims of Henry and Edmund Morti- 
mer. (2.) When did the hereditary idea of kingship begin to 
overshadow the elective principle ? (Taswell-Langmead, 220, 
221.) 
(3.) What setback had the hereditary idea received so far ? 

98. Rebellion and War. 

Topics. 

1. Trouble with Wales. 

2. Trouble with Scotland and the Percies. 

3. Continued trouble with Wales and the condition of France. 
Reference. — Bright, i. 277-2S2. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What quarrel had the Percies with 
Henry IV. ? (Bright, i. 279.) (2.) Show from this quarrel 
Henry's own feeling about his right to the succession. (3.) This 
feeling of Henry's would make him cautious about offending 
what two powers in the state ? 

99. Origin of the Stuart Family in Scotland. 

Topics. 

1. Succession in Scotland after David II. 

2. Captivity of James I. of Scotland. 

100. Persecution of the Lollards. 

Topics. 

1. Suspected disloyalty of the Lollards. 



224 PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 

2. Legislation against them and persecution. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 291, 292; Green, 265-267; Bright, i. 
284-286; Gairdner, H. L. Y., 86-88 ; Taswell-Langmead, 408- 
411. Henry IV. and the church: Gardiner, i. 291, 292; Gaird- 
ner, H. L. Y., 85-90 ; Green, 265 ; Ransome, 86, 87. 

Research Questions. — (1.) To please whom was the king will- 
ing to proceed against the Lollards ? (2.) Describe the martyr- 
dom of William Sawtre. (Guest, 314.) (3.) In what other way 
did Henry show his friendship for the church ? (Gardiner, i. 
294.) (4.) On what points was he willing to proceed against the 
church? (Stubbs, C. H., iii. 50, 51.) (5.) Henry's attitude toward 
her shows what about the church's power ? 

101. The Strengthening of Parliament. 

Topics. 

1. Increased power of the Commons. 

2. Assertion of their rights with regard to : a, taxation; b, official 

records of their acts; c, control of elections; d, freedom of 
speech. 

3. The thirty-one articles. 

References. — Bright, i. 282, 283 ; Green, 265 ; Ransome, 86, 87 ; 
Stubbs, C. H., iii. ch. xviii. ; Taswell-Langmead, ch. ix. ; Green, 
H. E. P., i.491, 492; Traill, ii. 279-282; H. Taylor, i. book iii. 
ch. ii. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What causes for the increased 
power of Parliament? (Traill, ii. 280.) (2.) What powers of 
vast importance did the Parliament gain by the king's poverty ? 
(Traill, ii. 309.) (3.) Define the three most important privileges 
of Parliament, and show why they are essential to freedom. 
(Taswell-Langmead, 319-343.) (4.) How did the two houses 
obtain the privilege of discussing separately ? (Taswell-Lang- 
mead, 310, 311.) (5.) What is the value of this privilege ? 

102. The Prince of Wales. 
Topics. 

1. The prince as regent. 

2. Trustworthiness of his portrayal by Shakespeare. 

3. Disagreements with his father. 

4. The king's death. 
Reference.— Gardiner, i. 297, 29S. 



foi 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 225 
103. The Character of Henry V. 



. OPICS. 

1. His acts of generosity. 

2. His character in history. 

3. Hostility to the Lollards. 

References. — Bright, i. 302 ; Gardiner, i. 297, 298 ; Gairdner, H. 
L. Y., 90-92 ; Guest, 3i4-3!6, 321, 322. 

104. The New Attempt against Prance. 
Topics. 

1. Henry's design of conquest. 

2. Encouragement by : a, English feeling ; b, condition of France 

3. His army and the first five weeks of the campaign. 

4. The battle of Agincourt and Henry's return to England. 
Reference. — Gairdner, H. L. Y., 96-103. 

105. Henry's Triumphs and his Death. 

Topics. 

1. Renewed attempts at conquest, aided by French factions. 

2. Siege of Rouen. 

3. The dauphin a national leader and the treaty of Troyes. 

4. King's marriage and the campaign of the following year. 

5. Birth of an heir and the death of the king. 
Reference. — Gairdner, H. L. Y., 106-116. 

106. Henry VI. and his Uncles. 

Topics. 

1. Henry V.'s brothers and their offices. 

Reference. — Gairdner, H. L. Y., 128-132. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What right did Parliament assert 
at the accession of Henry VI. ? (Ransome, 87, 88.) (2.) Con- 
trast Bedford and Gloucester. (Guest, 333.) 

107. The Maid of Orleans. 
Topics. 

1. Character of Charles VII. 

2. The peasant girl from Lorraine. 

3. The Maid in command at Orleans. 

4. Charles crowned at Rheims. 

5. Dissensions in the French camp. 

6. Martyrdom of the Maid. 



226 PARLIAMENTARY KINGS. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 310-312; Bright, i. 308-311 ; Gaird- 
ner, H. L. Y., 132-140; Green, 274-279; Colby, 113-117. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Sketch the biography of Joan of 
Arc. (Guest, 337-342.) (2.) Why were witches burned ? (3.) 
What instances of witches in the history of this country ? 

108. Expulsion of the English from France. 
Topics. 

1. The death of Bedford. 

2. The Duke of Burgundy changes sides. 

3. Henry VI. 's disposition. 

4. The truce and Henry's marriage. 

5. England loses all except Calais. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 312-320 ; Gairdner, H. L. Y., 140-161 

109. Rising Troubles in England. 
Topics. 

1. Weakness of the king. 

2. Strife among the Houses of York, Beaufort, and Neville^ 

3. Appearance on the scene of the Duke of York. 
Reference. — Gairdner, H. L. Y., 140-161. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 227 




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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. 
1450-1603. 



CHAPTER XI. 



FACTIOUS KING-MAKING CIVIL WAR — POLITICAL 

DECLINE. 

Lancastrian and Yorkist Kings : Henry VI. — Edward 
IV. — Richard III. 1450-1485. 

110. The State of England. England had been heav- 
ily burdened by the cost of the French war ; it was 
humiliated by the disastrous ending of the war ; it was 
troubled by the disbanded soldiers who streamed back, 
bringing habits of lawless violence ; but apparently the 
country had never before been so prosperous materially 
as it was at this time. If prosperous, however, in out- 
ward circumstances, there seems to be no doubt that, in 
mind, character, and spirit, the people had suffered a 
marked decline. 

The worst sign of a disordered social state was seen in 
the swelling bands of lawless "retainers " that followed 
at the heel of every great lord. Parliament had at- 
tempted, again and again, to check the growing evil of 
"livery and maintenance," as it was described. This 

foul growth sprang from seed which decaying 
mainte- feudalism had sown. The vassal of former 

times, feudally bound to the occasional service 
of a great earl or baron, had given place to a follower 



i S thCent.] FACTIOUS KING-MAKING. 229 

and partisan less responsible, more dependent — more a 
servant and a tool. The retainer wore his lord's livery, 
was marked with his badge, was generally fed at his board, 
was favored in many ways by his patronage and protec- 
tion, but most importantly by the " maintenance " which 
the great man agreed to give him if he had any cause in 
court ; which meant, of course, the. overawing influence 
upon judges and juries that a powerful noble could bring 
to bear. In return, the retainer stood ready to fight in 
his lord's quarrels at all places and times. It was a kind 
of service and relationship more dangerous than the vas- 
salage of feudalism, as was shown by the factiousness and 
civil war that arose in England with it, and which did not 
end until the great lords of the new system and their 
armies of retainers had almost destroyed one another. 

The state of things in the church had grown steadily 
worse. The monastic bodies and the clergy of the 
cathedrals had contrived to take more and more of the 
estates and tithes intended for the support of parish 
priests. The latter were impoverished, their The 
number diminished, their character lowered, cllurcl1 - 
their influence lessened or changed from good to ill, 
and the country was infinitely harmed. Lollardism was 
secretly kept alive, but there is nothing to show that it 
represented a religious feeling like that of the century 
before. Literature was silenced. In the emphatic lan- 
guage of a writer who has carefully studied the age, 
" there was no zeal, hardly any character, no learning 
at all." 1 

Something of the meanness in the character of the 
time must be ascribed to the prosperity that was being 
enjoyed. A sordid taint had been given to the commer- 
cial spirit of the towns. They were ceasing to be com- 
1 Rogers, Hist of Agriculture and Prices, vol. iv. ch. v. 



230 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [i 5 th Cent. 

munities of self-governing freemen, and were taking on 

an aristocratic form. Increasing wealth had destroyed 

the democracy of the early gilds. They were no longer 

called gilds, but were "mysteries," "crafts," 

The towns . „ ,,,■,,,, . 

and the " companies, and had changed their constitu- 
tions and their character with the change of 
name. The old gild-merchant had given place to a num- 
ber of distinct merchant-companies, — mercers', grocers', 
drapers', goldsmiths', fishmongers', etc., — and these, 
being the richest of the companies, had the greatest 
weight in the towns. In the companies themselves wealth 
had grasped the controlling power. Journeymen were 
being separated from masters in the "crafts." " Every- 
where the more opulent citizens filled the offices and car- 
ried on the routine of administration." In fact, these 
associations, outside of whose membership there were 
generally no rights of burghership, or borough-citizen- 
ship, and whose representatives composed or controlled 
many town councils, were coming to be " close corpora- 
tions," their official acts performed by a few wealthy 
men. 

Those who controlled the municipality controlled its 
representation in Parliament, and the popular spirit was 
vanishing from that. The representatives of the towns 
had become even ready to betray their fellow commoners 
of the shires, and did so in the Parliament of 1430, when 
they permitted the passage of an act which took the vote 
for members of the House of Commons away from the 
great body of the freemen of the counties (see section 
101), and limited it to those who had "free land or tene- 
ment to the value of forty shillings by the year, 
of the at least." Forty shillings was then equal to 

ommons. a k out fjf teen times the same sum at the present 
day, and the property qualification was therefore high. 



i45°J 



FACTIOUS KING-MAKING. 



231 



The House of Commons was thus made to be represent- 
ative, not of the common people of England, but quite 
strictly of two classes of the well-to-do or the rich — 
namely, the landowners and the men of trade. Politi- 
cally, the nation was now greatly debased, and it was 
kneeling already to lay its neck under the foot of an 
absolute king. 

111. Richard, Duke of York. Notwithstanding the 
torpor of political feeling that had crept over England, 
there was widespread dis- 
satisfaction with the gov- 
ernment, combined with 
much suspicion and dislike 
of Queen Margaret of 
Anjou, as a Frenchwo- 
man, and much contempt 
for the feeble goodness of 
the king. As yet, Henry 
was childless, and Rich- 
ard, Duke of York, was 
looked upon as heir-pre- 
sumptive to the throne. 
He had given evidence 
of strong qualities, and 
seemed to be the natural hope of those who wanted 
better government ; but court jealousies had excluded 
him from any useful part in national affairs. He had 
been given office in Ireland to put him out of the way. 
In 1450 there began to be a popular demand for his pre- 
sence among the counsellors of the king, and a rebellious 
demonstration which seemed to have that for its chief 
object was set on foot in Kent. Under an 
Irish soldier, named Jack Cade, some 20,000 or 
30,000 men marched to London, where they tried and 




HENRY VI. 



Jack Cade. 



232 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1450-1450 

beheaded Lord Say, one of the most obnoxious of the 
king's ministers, and held possession of the city during 
three riotous days. In the end they were persuaded to 
disperse, with promises of general pardon ; but Cade 
made fresh disturbances and was killed. 

Then began a contest for the control of the weak 
king's council, between the Duke of York, who came 
back from Ireland, on one side, and the Duke of Somer- 
set, with Queen Margaret supporting him, on the other. 
In 1453, the feeble mind of the king gave way, and Som- 
„ , erset and the queen (who had just given birth 

The Duke 1 v . 

of York to a son) could hold their ground against York 

Protector. . . 

no longer. Parliament was summoned, and in 
March, 1454, the Lords, with approval of the Commons, 
appointed the Duke of York Protector of the Realm ; 
but the king soon recovered, and York's authority was 
at an end. Fearing, then, or professing to fear for his 
life, he rallied his supporters in arms, and civil war was 
begun. 

112. The First Period of the Wars of the Roses. 
The question of right to the crown (where no right in 
reality existed, except as given by the will of Parlia- 
ment), between the houses of Lancaster and York, was 
now to be fought out, in a series of fierce, factious com- 
bats, known as the Wars of the Roses, for the reason 
that a red rose was the emblem of Lancaster and a white 
rose the emblem of York. In the first battle (1455), at 
Battle of St. Albans, Somerset fell and his party was 
st. Albans. Dea ten. The insanity of the king then re- 
turned, and York was again made protector ; but only to 
be dismissed once more when Henry recovered, in the 
following year. For two years there was peace, but 
both factions were pursuing secret designs, and in 1459 
they were again in arms. Some defection that occurred 



145.9-1460] 



FACTIOUS KING-MAKING. 



233 



in the Yorkist ranks dispersed that party, however, 
and the leaders fled to Ireland and France, where they 
planned their undertakings anew. In the following sum- 
mer they reappeared in England, encountered 
the royal forces in battle at Northampton (July Northamp- 
10, 1460), defeated them and captured the king. 
Then the Duke of York made a formal presentation to 
Parliament of his claim to the crown. After much dis- 
cussion it was agreed, with King Henry's assent, that 




ENGLAND DURING THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 

the latter should wear the crown while he lived, but that 
the succession should go to the duke and his heirs ; and 
this agreement was embodied in a parliamentary act. 

Queen Margaret, who had escaped northward, refused 
to abandon what she believed to be the rights of her in- 
fant son, and she found many supporters who were 
ready to fight in her cause. She gathered a powerful 



234 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1460-1461 

army, which the Duke of York made a fatal mistake in 
attacking;, at Wakefield, in December, and there 

Battle of ° 

Wakefield he was defeated and slain. His second son 
of st. and his chief supporter, the Earl of Salisbury, 

head of the Neville family, were taken in the 
fight and put to death. Moving southward, toward Lon- 
don, the queen and her army were met at St. Albans 
(February 17, 1461) by the Earl of Warwick, Salisbury's 
son, who brought King Henry in his train. Again the 
stout-hearted queen was victorious and rescued her help- 
less husband from his captivity. 

Meantime, the Duke of York's eldest son, Edward, 
who succeeded to his claims, had been raising forces in 

the west, and had fought a successful battle at 

Battle of ' & 

Mortimer's Mortimer s Cross (February 2, 1461), defeating 
the king's half-brother, Jasper Tudor, Earl of 
Pembroke, whose father, Sir Owen Tudor, he took pris- 
oner and beheaded, in the savage manner of the time. 
This Tudor family is one that will presently be conspic- 
uous in our tale. From the field "of his victory Edward 
moved to a junction with the beaten forces of Warwick, 
and together they entered London, which favored the 
Yorkist cause. There Edward, with the acclamation of 
a crowd of citizens, was proclaimed king, on the ground 
that Henry had broken the agreement of the previous 
year. 

Queen Margaret with her army, and with the husband 
and son for whom she fought, retreated to Yorkshire, 
Battles of pursued by Edward and Warwick, and was 
bridge and beaten in two fierce battles, fought at Ferry- 
Towton. bridge and at Towton (March 27-29). No less 
than 28,000 are said to have perished in the fight at 
Towton alone. The Lancastrian cause was crushed. 
Henry and Margaret fled to Scotland ; Edward returned 



1461-1465] 



FACTIOUS KING-MAKING. 



235 



in triumph to London, and was crowned without waiting 
for Parliament to pronounce upon his claims ; but Parlia- 
ment was obsequious when it assembled in November, 
affirming the title by which he had assumed to be king, 
and branding Henry as a usurper of the throne. 

113. Edward IV. While it is evident that the people 
at large took little active part in this factious contest of 
great families, there is no doubt that popular feeling ran 
in Edward's favor at first. Government under Henry 
had fallen into contempt. Queen Margaret, who sought 
help wherever she could find it, in Scotland or France, 
was regarded with distrust 
and dislike. Her brave en- 
deavors for her husband and 
son were prejudicial to both. 
Edward, on the other hand, 
had the good repute of his 
father to recommend him, 
and won a personal liking 
by pleasant ways of his own. 
The Earl of Warwick, who 
stood behind him, was the 
most popular and powerful 
noble of the day. Thus the 
prospects of the new reign 
appeared reasonably fair ; 
though the indomitable Margaret of Anjou kept her cause 
alive, and was able, with help got in France, to reappear 
in the north of England in the spring of 1464. Battles of 
Beaten then in two battles, at Hedgeley Moor SoofaSd 
and Hexham, — her leading partisans taken and Hexliam - 
put to death, — there seemed to be an end to her hopes. 
In the following year, Henry, entering Lancashire in 
secret, was captured and committed to the Tower. 




EDWARD IV. 



236 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1464-1469 



But Edward, by his own acts, broke the main prop of 
his throne just when it seemed to be made secure. Earl 
Warwick planned for him a politic marriage with the 
sister of the Queen of France. Edward disappointed 

him by secretly marry- 
ing a young widow, 
Elizabeth Woodville, 
daughter of a Lancas- 
trian lord. He fol- 
lowed the marriage by 
an unwise haste in be- 
stowing great offices, 
titles, and estates on 
The wood- tne relatives 

villes. of his wifCj 

— the Woodvilles, pre- 
viously a family of no 
great note. These 
soon formed a close 
circle round the 
throne, pushing away 
the Nevilles and other 
great Yorkist houses, who watched the intrusion with 
jealous disgust. Still further, the king offended Warwick 
by forming an alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, and 
planning another ambitious war with France, when the 
earl, more wisely, was seeking to bring England into 
friendship with Louis XL, the shrewd French king. 
By these various causes Warwick was alienated from 
Edward, and drew the latter's brother, George, 

Warwick 

the King- Duke of Clarence, into confederacy with him. 

Warwick's feeling was widely shared ; for the 

young king Edward had disappointed the hopes with 

which he was crowned. He had proved to be an idler 




WARWICK, FROM THE ROUS ROLL. 



1470-1471! 



FACTIOUS KING-MAKING. 



237 



and a spendthrift ; he pursued scandalous pleasures ; he 
gave England no better government than it had before. 
A number of insurrections occurred, and there were con- 
fused hostilities for a time, which need not be detailed. 
These resulted in the flight of Warwick and Clarence 
to France, where they leagued themselves with Queen 
Margaret and came back to England in September, 1470, 
as chiefs of the Lancastrian cause. Henry was to be 
restored to the throne, and Clarence was to have a right 
of succession if Henry's line should fail. 

114. Edward's Plight and Return. In the face of 
this combination Edward lost courage and fled to Hol- 
land, seeking help from Duke 
Charles of Burgundy, who had 
married his sister. The royal pris- 
oner in the Tower was set free and 
once more placed on the throne, 
with Warwick in actual power. The 
apathetic nation seemed as ready 
to submit to one party as the other. 
Either, with a king's name to use, 
could control the election of a Par- 
liament obedient to its commands. 
For some months the restored king 
seemed likely to end his reign in 
peace. But Edward had an ally 
that may not have been taken into 
account. The foreign merchants 
of the Hanse towns feared the loss 
of their privileges in England if 
French influence prevailed there, and they are said to 
have joined the Duke of Burgundy in very liberal and 
effective aid to the exiled king. With that help he, in 
his turn, came back. Collecting an army on the way, 




ARMOR OF CHARLES THE 
BOLD OF BURGUNDY. 



238 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1471-1470 

he marched to London and was gladly received, the 
unfortunate Henry falling into his hands. Three days 
Battle of l ater (April 14, 1 471), he fought Warwick at 
Deathof Barnet, and " the King-maker," as the great earl 
Warwick. } iac i come to be called, was defeated and slain. 
On that same day Queen Margaret had reached England 
with her son, then eighteen years old. The relics of her 
ill-fated party rallied around her and made one more vain 
stand, at Tewkesbury, and there (May 4, 1471) the war, 
as between York and Lancaster, came to an end. Ed- 
ward, merciless in his triumph, gave no quarter ; the 
Deathof young prince fell, with his friends, while Mar- 
Henry iv.^ g are t became a prisoner. A few days later, the 
victor reentered London, and that night Henry VI. died 
suddenly in the Tower. That he was secretly murdered 
there has never been a doubt. 

Not satisfied with the death of his rival and his rival's 
son, nor with the great slaughter of Lancastrians in the 
field, Edward hunted the party down with an almost 
insatiate thirst for blood, and stripped its families of 
their estates. He was energetic in that ; he was ener- 
getic and skilful, too, in mercenary arts. He engaged 
personally in operations of trade, with success. He 
invented an ingenious mode of begging money from 
his subjects, in large or small sums, according to their 
"Benevo- means, calling the extorted gift a "benevo- 
lences." lence," to give it a pretty name. Where no 
money was to be gained, or revenge to be sought, or 
personal power to be advanced, Edward IV. had little 
time or care to waste on the business of the state. His 
pleasures demanded the chief attention of his mind. 

The king's two brothers were men less admirable than 
himself. Clarence, the elder, who played treason with 
Warwick, had earned pardon, but not forgiveness, by 



1479-1483] FACTIOUS KING-MAKING. 239 

treachery to the King-maker when the star of the latter 
declined. The younger brother, Richard, Duke mcbardof 
of Gloucester, had shared Edward's fortunes Gloucester - 
throughout ; fought valiantly, as a lad of eighteen, at Bar- 
net and Tewkesbury, and was accused of having killed 
the young Prince of Wales with his own hands. Bitter 
jealousy and rivalry grew up between the two; but the 
feebly treacherous Clarence was no match for the bold, 
unscrupulous, cool, and clear-brained Gloucester, who 
proved to be a man of extraordinary powers. There are 
no open marks of Gloucester's hand in the measures that 
swept Clarence from his path, and yet it can hardly be 
doubted that he moved some of the secret springs, and 
that he and Edward were equally guilty of their brother's 
death. Clarence's old treasons were suddenly Deathof 
brought up against him ; he was impeached, con- Clarence - 
demned, and executed (February, 1479) so secretly, in 
the Tower, that the mode of his death has never been 
known. A story that he chose to be drowned in a butt 
of Malmsey wine may possibly be true. 

115. The Usurpation of Richard III. Edward's 
manner of life was not calculated to give him length of 
days, and he died in the spring of 1483, at the age of 
forty-two, leaving two sons, Edward and Richard, the 
elder being then in his thirteenth year. The queen, 
their mother, and her kindred, who were much disliked, 
made a futile attempt to keep in their hands the guard- 
ianship of the young Prince Edward (commonly entitled 
King Edward V., though he never received the crown). 
Gloucester had little difficulty in securing the person of 
the prince and causing himself to be declared, by the 
late king's council, Protector of the Realm. He was 
helped in this by Lord Hastings, the president of the 
council ; but when Hastings proved an obstacle to the 



240 



RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. 



[1483 



further aim that was in Richard's evil mind, he was dar- 
ingly snatched from the very council chamber, 
of Lord and beheaded on the instant, without trial, at 
the Protector's command. Opposition was ter- 
rorized by the ruthless audacity with which Richard 
strode forward to the seizure of the crown. In June, 
a Parliament (not afterwards recognized as such) was 

brought together, 
which decided, with 
pitiful servility, that 
the marriage of Ed- 
ward IV. with Eliza- 
beth Woodville had 
been brought about 
by sorcery and was 
illegal ; that the chil- 
dren of Edward were 
illegitimate ; that the 
Duke of Clarence's 
son was disabled from 
claiming the throne 
by his father's attaint 
of treason ; that Rich- 
ard was, therefore, 
entitled to the crown. 
On that decision he 
was proclaimed king, and his coronation took place in 
July. He had filled the city with armed men, and none 
dared to resist. 

Both of the young princes, his nephews, were at this 
time in Richard's power. The younger had been in 
sanctuary with his mother at Westminster, but the 
treacherous usurper had lured him out, and the two 
doomed brothers were together in the Tower. There, 




III MURDERED PRINCE CALLED EDWARD 
V., FROM AN OLD MS. 



1483] 



FACTIOUS KING-MAKING. 



241 




at some unknown time in that year, in some unknown 

way, they were put to death. Only the fact of Murder of 

the murder is certain ; that they were smothered the P rinces - 

is a probably true account. Before the princes died there 

were conspiracies against 

Richard on foot, and they 

were stimulated by the 

horrible crime. But no 

one who could dispute 

the usurper's title to the 

throne with a stronger 

hereditary claim than his 

own had now survived. 

The candidate most 
promising was found to 
be Henry Tudor, Earl of 
Richmond, whose lineage 
branched away rather 
widely from the Lancas- 
trian royal stem. His grandmother was Catherine of 
France, the widowed queen of Henry V., who had taken 
for a second husband Owen Tudor, an accomplished and 
handsome Welsh chief. That, of course, brought no 
blood of English royalty into Henry's veins. But his 
father, Edmund Tudor, created Earl of Rich- Henry of 
mond by Henry VI. (his half-brother), had mar- Richmond, 
ried Margaret Beaufort, heiress of whatever rights could 
be drawn from the third marriage of John of Gaunt, to 
which the origin of the Beaufort family was traced. It 
was, therefore, to his mother that Henry of Richmond 
owed a remote and questionable claim to the English 
crown. It was proposed and agreed that he should 
strengthen it by marrying the Princess Elizabeth, daugh- 
ter of Edward IV. On that understanding, the Earl of 



RICHARD III. 



242 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1483-1485 

Richmond became the accepted chief of all who would 
cast Richard from the throne. 

116. Defeat and Death of Richard. The first rising, 
in October, 1483, failed completely, and cost the life of 
its leader, the Duke of Buckingham, who had done more 
than any other to help Richard in the first instance, but 
who deserted his cause. Richmond, attempting an in- 
vasion from Brittany, was baffled by a storm and turned 
•back ; but only to make preparations anew. Richard, 
on his side, strove to strengthen himself by popular 
measures, and sought, when his young wife died, to 
marry the Princess Elizabeth, his niece. But nothing 
availed to win the support of the nation, and its best 
wishes were with Henry of Richmond when he landed in 
Wales (June, 1485), and marched thence into the Eng- 
lish Midlands, gathering forces as he advanced. Richard 
Battle of encountered him at Bosworth (August 22) with 
Bosworth. an arm y m uch superior in numbers ; but some 
had followed him only to betray him, and went over to 
Henry in the midst of the battle. He fought with the 
courage of despair, finding death on the field, as he no 
doubt meant to do. The battered crown that he had 
worn on his helmet was picked up in a thorn bush and 
placed on the victor's head. 

117. The Condition of England at the End of the 
Civil Wars. The long civil wars appear to have been 
less disturbing to the people at large than might have 
been supposed. The old nobility of the kingdom was 
well-nigh stricken clown, by slaughter in battle, execu- 
tions, exile, impoverishment ; and new families, with less 
prestige and power, rose to the higher ranks. But the 
mass of the people took small part in what were really 
factious contests of the aristocracy alone, and they were 
only touched occasionally by the movements of armies 



i 4 8 5 ] 



FACTIOUS KING-MAKING. 



243 



quickly formed and quickly dispersed. They suffered 
mainly from the general weakening of authority and law, 
the failure of "governance," as it was described, that had 
been going on since the century began. 

The state of the country was one in which an arbitrary 
government was sure to grow up. Parliament no longer 
represented anything, in either house. Re- 
straint upon the monarchy by a strong nobility political 

, , ,. , ., , , . r ~ J situation. 

had disappeared ; restraint by a body of Com- 
mons, organized and spirited enough to take the respon- 
sibility for public rights and public interests on them- 
selves, was yet to come. 

Considerable parts of the people seem to have pros- 
pered materially, even during the wars. Some 
towns fell into decay ; others thrived in manu- industrial 
factures or trade or both. The woollen manu- Sltua 10n ' 

facture made strides ; 
the exportation of 
English cloth, instead 
of English wool, was 
gaining fast. 

Castle-building, 
which had declined 
since the reign of Ed- 
ward III., when gun- 
powder and Architec 
cannon came ture - 
into use, was ended 
in this period. Coun- 
try mansions were be- 
ing extensively built. 
Brickmaking, lost as 
an art since Roman 

OLDEST KNOWN REPRESENTATION OF A 

printing press. times, was not revived 




244 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1477 

in England until near the middle of the fifteenth century. 
A declining taste in architecture was shown. 

118. Introduction of Printing. It seems very 
strange that the peaceful art of arts — the grandest of 
inventions in its civilizing effect — should have come 
to England in the midst of times so disordered as those 
which this chapter describes. It was in 1477 that 
William Caxton, who had learned the new art at Cologne, 
brought type from Bruges and set up the first press on 

Ipff to 6noQ# t$e ctaf & of fclfcme 30; 
ticwepfc, Qfcnfc (0 fct fo fepc c&ntjmuttty tfe* 
We of \fi& (fop/ for d*$m*K6 not cow) fo 

$ i 

FACSIMILE SPECIMEN OF CAXTON'S PRINTING. 

English soil, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, 
where he printed the " Dictes or Sayings of Philoso- 
phers," the earliest of English printed books. Within 
three years his busy press had given England some 
thirty books, large and small (including among them 
Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales "), which indicates the lit- 
erary thirst of the time. It thirsted for letters, but it 
did not produce. The last half of the century is a barren 
time in English literature. Its most worthy work is 
one in politics, by Sir John Fortescue, an exiled English 
judge, of the Lancastrian party, who wrote "On the 
Governance of the Kingdom of England " or " The Dif- 
ference between Absolute and Limited Monarchy," in 
the spirit of a constitutionalist of modern times. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 245 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

110. The State of England. 
Topics. 

1 . Consequences of the war with France. 

2. The retainers : a, their origin ; b, their service to their lords. 

3. Condition of the church, and of literature. 

4. Decay of gilds and popular representation in towns. 

5. Forty Shillings Act. 

References. — Stubbs, C. H., ii. 470, 471 ; Green, 288-292. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What had been the condition of the 
franchise previous to the Forty Shillings Act ? (2.) Why is this 
act a notable one ? (3.) How long did it remain in force ? 
(Green, 272, 273 ; Taswell-Langmead, 340, 341.) 

111. Richard, Duke of York. 

Topics. 

1. Dissatisfaction with the government. 

2. Demand for Duke of York and Jack Cade's rebellion. 

3. The duke as protector. 
Reference. — Bright, i. 320-322. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What other reason for Jack Cade's 
rebellion besides support of the Duke of York ? (Guest, 348.) 
(2.) Why was the birth of an heir to the king the signal for the 
breaking out of the War of the Roses ? (Bright, i. 322.) (3.) 
What was the central issue of the War of the Roses ? (Traill, 
ii. 278.) 

112. The First Period of the War of the Roses. 

Topics. 

1 . Emblems of the war. 

2. Battle of St. Albans and its results. 

3. Battle of Northampton and settlement of the succession. 

4. Battle of Wakefield and second battle of St. Albans. 

5. Edward of York and the battle of Mortimer's Cross. 

6. Battles of Ferrybridge and Towton, and crowning of Edward. 
References. — Bright, i. 322-327; Gairdner, H. L. Y., 163-175. 
Research Questions. — (1.) The failure of the Lancastrians to 

keep the throne shows the break-down of what principle of king- 
ship ? (2.) Edward IV.'s coronation strengthens what principle 



246 FACTIOUS KING-MAKING. 

of kingship? (Taswell-Langmead, 221.) (3.) What underlying 
causes for the war were there in the condition of the country ? 
(Guest, 356-358-) 

113. Edward IV. 
Topics. 

1. Circumstances favoring Edward. 

2. Margaret reappears in the north. 

3. Edward's marriage and its offence to the Earl of Warwick. 

4. Disappointment in Edward and the conspiracy of Warwick. 
References. — Gardiner, i. 329-333 ; Gairdner, H. L. Y., 175-188. 

114. Edward's Flight and Return. 
Topics. 

1. Edward in Holland and the restoration of Henry VI. 

2. The Hanse towns aid Edward. 

3. Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury. 

4. Character and talents of Edward. 

5. Strife between the king's brothers. 
References. — Gairdner, H. L. Y., 188-209. 

115. The Usurpation of Richard III. 
Topics. 

1. Edward's death and his heirs. 

2. Gloucester as protector. 

3. Gloucester proclaimed king. 

4. Murder of the princes. 

5. Henry of Richmond : a, his descent ; b, his marriage. 

References. — Gairdner, H. L. Y., 209-222; Colby, 122-125. 

Research Questions. — (1.) When Richard's Parliament ap- 
pointed the protector and fixed the succession, what sort of rights 
was it exercising? (2.) What is meant by being in sanctuary? 
(Guest, 361.) (3.) How did Henry's marriage unite the claims of 
Lancaster and York ? 

116. Defeat and Death of Richard. 
Topics. 

1. The first uprising. 

2. Richard's attempts to strengthen himself. 

3. The battle of Bosworth. 
Reference. — Gairdner, H. L. Y., 231-236. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 247 

117. The Condition of England at the End of the Civil 

Wars. 
Topics. 

1. Effect on the people and on the nobility of the wars. 

2. Decline of Parliament. 

3. Prosperity in trade and condition of rural labor. 

4. Condition of architecture. 

References. — Stubbs, C. H., iii. 679-696; Bright, i. 349-354; 
Cunningham, G. E. I. C, i. ch. iv. Industry and commerce: 
Traill, ii. 393-407. Castle-building : Traill, ii. 363, 364. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What was the extent of the extermi- 
nation of the noble houses? (Ransome, 95.) (2.) How would 
this affect Parliament ? (3.) What ominous features of con- 
tinental governments did not follow in England the fall of the 
nobility? (Ransome, 95.) (4.) What was the social effect in 
England of the War of the Roses ? (5.) What increase of in- 
cisures in this and the preceding reigns ? (Gardiner, i. 320.) (6.) 
What was the effect of this upon labor ? (Cunningham and 
McArthur, 82-84 ; Guest, 358.) 

118. Introduction of Printing. 

Topics. 

1. William Caxton and the printing press. 

2. Literature of the times. 

References. — Green, 295, 296; Traill, ii. 527-537. Parliament 
of this period : Montague, 78-86 ; Ransome, 90-99 ; Stubbs, C. 
H., iii. 212, 213; Taswell-Langmead, 359, 360; H. Taylor, i. 576- 
588. 



LINEAGE OF HENRY VII. FROM JOHN OF GAUNT, THIRD 
SON OF EDWARD III. 

John of Gaunt, 

13 JZ?T (John Beaufort, (John Beaufort, I Margaret, 

married ) J „ , , ' \ J , ,-, , <■ \ married ( „ , rIT 

(third wife) ) Earl of istDukeof \ Edmund Tudor, { Henry VIL 

Catherine < Somerset. ( Somerset. [ Earl of Richmond. 
Swynford. 



SURVEY OF GENERAL HISTORY. 

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

The Rise of Absolute Monarchy and the Growth of Religions 
Independence. Partly as one of the causes and partly as one 
of the consequences of the breaking up of the feudal system 
in Europe, kings and sovereign princes of every rank gained 
power, and their governments took on a more absolute form. 
The check in which they had been held by strong vassals — 
often stronger than themselves — was weakened, and finally 
disappeared, before their subjects at large became able to 
put a curb of their own in its place. So it happens that the 
time to which we look as the beginning of our modern era in 
civilization was actually a time of darkening in political cir- 
cumstances, so far as liberty for the people was concerned. 
This effect had become so marked in the sixteenth century 
that a growth of despotism in government was one of two 
movements that controlled events in that age ; the other, in 
strange contrast and opposition, being a sudden outburst of 
freedom and independence in religious thought. The two 
movements were in necessary conflict, and the history of the 
period is mainly a history of their strife. 

The Emperor Charles V. and his many Realms. Remark- 
able consequences came in this period from the marriage 
(noted in our survey of the preceding age) of Philip, son of 
Mary of Burgundy and Maximilian of Austria, to Joanna, 
daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. A son, Charles, 
who was born to those parents in the year 1500, became the 
heir of all that belonged to the ducal and royal houses of 
Austria, Burgundy, and Spain. He received his Burgundian 
inheritance in 1506, his Spanish inheritance in 15 16, his Aus- 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 249 

trian inheritance in 15 19, and was elected in that last-named 
year to the German and imperial throne. He was then, at 
the age of nineteen, the sovereign of Spain, and of her vast 
possessions in America, of Sicily, of Naples, of Sardinia, of 
Germany, of the rich provinces of the Netherlands, and of 
all that the misty bounds of the " Holy Roman Empire " em- 
braced. No such overshadowing sovereignty had existed in 
Europe since the day of Charlemagne. 

The Protestant Reformation. In the years when Charles V. 
was gathering up his many crowns, Martin Luther in Germany 
and Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland set in motion that great 
religious revolution called the Protestant Reformation, by 
which the Christian church in western Europe was rent 
asunder, one large division, known since as the Roman Catho- 
lic, holding fast to the ancient doctrines and modes of wor- 
ship, and continuing to look upon the pope as the divinely 
appointed head of the church of Christ; the other — the 
Protestant division — rejecting more or less of the beliefs of 
the mediaeval church, including belief in the authority of the 
pope. To this movement Charles V. became a formidable 
antagonist at once. But war with France and tasks of de- 
spotic government in Spain and Italy took so much of his 
attention and time, for some years, that Protestantism in 
northern Germany became a strongly organized power before 
it was called upon to meet the emperor's attacks. 

Spain. In Spain and the Netherlands, Charles could use 
his authority more forcibly and promptty, and he did so with 
a cruel hand. Freedom of thought had been crushed in Spain 
long before ; but some remnant of the old political freedom 
of the towns had survived, and he made haste to extinguish 
that. Perhaps it was not much missed in the Spain of that 
day, when wild excitements of discovery, conquest, and 
search for gold in America were running high. Cortes found 
Mexico in the third year of Charles's reign, and a dozen 
years later Pizarro reached Peru. The mines of both coun- 
tries were soon pouring an intoxicating poison into the veins 



250 GENERAL HISTORY. 

of Spain, and her short-lived career of ruinous glory was 
begun. 

Charles V. and the Netherlands. In his Dutch and Flemish 
dominions, Charles commanded a persecution of the Protest- 
ants which is said by some writers to have destroyed 100,000 
lives. That is probably a great exaggeration ; but the people 
burned, strangled, beheaded, and buried alive, were certainly 
an appalling host. Much faster than he could destroy them, 
however, rebellious minds were multiplied ; because the Neth- 
erlands were already full of schools, the people were taught 
to read, and no watchfulness could keep the new thinking 
out of the land. 

Charles V. and Francis I., the King of France. The one 
important rival of Charles V. in Europe was Francis I., King 
of France, and Italy was the main subject of their strife. A 
craving for Italian conquests had been roused in France by 
the expedition of Charles VIII., in 1494 (see page 204). The 
attempt of Charles VIII. against Naples had been repeated 
in the next reign (of Louis XII.), and defeated by the Spanish 
King Ferdinand, who secured the Neapolitan crown. Louis 
had then won and lost the duchy of Milan, and Louis's suc- 
cessor, Francis I., had won it back. Now came the young 
master of many kingdoms, the imperial Charles V., into the 
field, with determination to take all Italy to himself. His 
wars with Francis I. were the chief occupation of his life, and 
he gained his end. He made himself practically master of 
Italy, from Naples to Milan. He was such a master as Alaric 
had been, eleven centuries before. To humble a pope (Cle- 
ment VII.) who did not submit readily to his commands, he 
let loose upon Rome (1527) an army of mercenaries who 
sacked the venerable city with more havoc than the Goths. 
He brought upon the whole peninsula a Spanish blight from 
which it has never recovered to this day. 

Charles V. and the German Protestants. It was not until 
1546 that the emperor was ready to make a serious attack 
upon the Lutherans of Germany, who faced him with an 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 25 1 

armed league. Luther was then dead ; the Protestant princes 
were much divided, accepting no leader, and for some years 
they were completely beaten down. In the end, however, 
they rallied, and, with help from France, they forced the 
emperor to make terms with them, in a treaty called " The 
Religious Peace of Augsburg" (1555), which gave religious 
freedom to the ruling princes of Germany, but none to the 
people. Each sovereign was to be permitted to choose his 
own creed, and to impose it on his subjects without tolerating 
any other. As a practical consequence, the final division of 
Germany between Protestantism and Catholicism was settled, 
not by the people, but by their princes, and the former was 
rooted out in all the states over which the influence of the 
Hapsburg or Austrian-Spanish family prevailed. 

The Catholic Reaction, or Counter-Reformation. By the 
middle of the century, a powerful reaction against the Pro- 
testant Reformation began to make itself felt, caused partly 
by a vigorous Counter-Reformation within the Roman church, 
and partly by a sad decline of religious motive in the Pro- 
testant cause. Mercenary and political aims had been given 
to the movement ; men and classes in power had made it an 
opportunity to enrich themselves from the wealth of' the over- 
thrown church. Among the humbler followers of the Refor- 
mation, there was still the sincerity of its beginning ; but 
much of the control of it was in less honest hands. 

At the same time, the danger of the old church had brought 
a better class of men to its front. By a series of well-guided 
elections, popes who gave new strength to Catholicism were 
raised to the Roman throne. A general council of the church, 
assembled at Trent in 1545, undertook some reforms, but it 
did more in the way of fixing the doctrines of Catholicism 
and confirming the authority of the popes. 

To a great extent, the old church was reconstructed and 
reconsolidated at this time, and fresh forces were enlisted 
and organized in it. Of new organizations, the most remark- 
able was the Society of Jesus, founded by Loyola, in 1540, on 



252 GENERAL HISTORY. 

the military principle of absolute obedience to a commanding 
head. Its members, known asjesuits, formed an army, for 
the missionary work of the church, or for any other service, 
that flinched from no sacrifice or danger. 

Abdication of Charles V. In 1555, Charles V., wearied with 
the burden of his greatness, began to give away his crowns. 
During that year and the next, he resigned his hereditary 
dominions to his son Philip, and abdicated the imperial 
throne in favor of Ferdinand, his brother. He then retired 
to a cloister in Spain, where the remainder of his days were 
spent. 

Philip II. Philip II., who succeeded his father in the 
sovereignty of Spain, Spanish Italy, and the Netherlands, 
but who did not receive the imperial dignity, is as hateful a 
character as history can show. His sole aim in life was to 
destroy all opinion and will in the world except his own. 

Philip married Queen Mary of England, but his career in 
that country was brief. In the Netherlands he took up his 
father's work of persecution with a cold persistency more 
horrible than any passionate zeal. The suffering people were 
driven to organized and united revolt (1566), under the lead 
of a great noble, William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, known 
as William the Silent, and their half-century of struggle with 
the heartless Spaniard is one of the most heroic conflicts in 
the history of the world. In the northern provinces the Span- 
ish yoke was finally broken, and the independent Dutch Re- 
public was formed, which rose to prosperity and greatness as 
rapidly as Spain declined. In the southern provinces the 
struggle failed, and they sank, like Spain and Italy, under 
the Austrian-Spanish blight. 

The Huguenots of France. In the early years of the Pro- 
testant Reformation, it made great progress in France and 
had encouragement at court. King and court became hostile 
ere long, but the Protestants grew in numbers and formed a 
party (called the Huguenots) strong enough to contend with 
their opponents for the control of the state. The doctrines 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 253 

of the Huguenots were not those of Luther, in some particu- 
lars, nor their church organization the same. They followed 
the sterner teachings of the French reformer, John Calvin, 
and sought a more entirely self-governing church. 

Soon after the middle of the century the contending reli- 
gious parties, Huguenot and Catholic, came to blows, and 
France was torn by a long series of deplorable religious wars, 
which the meddling fingers of Philip of Spain helped to pro- 
long. At a moment of truce in those wars, the horrible Mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1572) was contrived by 
Catherine de Medici, mother of the young king, Charles IX., 
and thousands of the leading Huguenots were slaughtered at 
Paris and in other towns. From that time the Huguenot 
party lost ground, and, though a Huguenot, Henry of Navarre 
became King of France in 1589, he gained the crown by re- 
nouncing the Protestant faith and submitting to Rome. He 
gave freedom of worship, however, to the Protestants of 
France by the famous Edict of Nantes (1593). 

The Checking of the Turks. In eastern Europe, the alarm- 
ing advance of the Turks was practically ended when their 
sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, died (1566). 

Other Countries. In 1547, the Grand Prince of Moscow, 
Ivan, called " the Terrible," took the title of Cassar, or Tsar, 
and Russia as an empire had its birth. Poland had doomed 
itself to anarchy. Sweden rose to the lead of Scandinavian 
states, and Protestantism was established in them all. In 
Asia, a fresh movement of Mongol conquest reached India, 
and planted there the Mongol or Mogul Empire, which an 
English trading company afterwards overthrew. 

Commerce. — Exploration. — Colonization. The greatest of 
commercial revolutions is that which occurred in the six- 
teenth century, as the consequence of the Portuguese dis- 
covery of the ocean route to India by way of the Cape of 
Good Hope. The rich trade of the east deserted its old 
caravan and Mediterranean lines. For a century or more, the 
Portuguese controlled the first handling of East Indian com- 



254 GENERAL HISTORY. 

modities, which they brought to Lisbon and there turned over 
to Dutch, English, and German traders for distribution 
through western and northern Europe. The older commer- 
cial capitals, Venice, Genoa, Constantinople, Alexandria, 
Bruges, Antwerp, lost their rank ; London and Amsterdam 
rose. The Hanseatic League, long declining, was nearly dis- 
solved. 

Not with quick enterprise, but slowly, the New World was 
being explored. In 1562 and 1564, the Huguenot Admiral 
Coligny attempted, in Florida, the first colonization of Euro- 
peans that was undertaken in any part of what became the 
United States; in 1565, his colony was attacked by Spaniards 
and fiendishly destroyed. In 1585, the first English colony 
was attempted by Sir Walter Raleigh at Roanoke, and 
failed. 

Literature and Art. Nowhere else, in this century, was so 
noble a literature inspired as that in England which adorned 
the great Shakespearean age ; but Spain gave birth to Cer- 
vantes, Portugal to Camoens, Italy to Tasso and Machiavelli, 
Holland to Erasmus, France to Rabelais and Montaigne. 
Except in the prose of Luther's translation of the Bible, which 
fixed the German language in literary use, the century pro- 
duced in German literature no notable fruit. With Raphael 
and Michael Angelo, Italian art reached its crowning height, 
and its decline began. 

Science. It goes hardly too far to say that modern science 
was born in this century, when the publication of the Coper- 
nican system of astronomy, recognizing the sun instead of 
the earth as the centre of celestial motions, began to lift the 
minds of men to a new standpoint for the viewing of the 
universe, and to jostle their thinking of nature and of natural 
things out of its old grooves. But most of the early fruit of 
the new observing and thinking was ripened in the next age. 



CHAPTER XII. 

ARBITRARY MONARCHY THE FOUNDING OF THE 

NATIONAL CHURCH. 

Tudor Kings : Henry VII. — Henry VIII. 1485-1547. 

119. The Opening of the Modern Era. At the 

coming in of the Tudor dynasty, England may be said to 
have entered what we call the Modern Era, out of that 
state of society which we know as Mediaeval, but do not 
easily define. The social constitution of the nation had 
undergone a radical change. Villeinage in the lowest 
ranks and feudal baronage in the highest had both practi- 
cally disappeared, and the great middle class of burgesses, 
yeomen, and farmers, that was to rule England in the 
future, had begun its powerful growth. The gild organ- 
izations of industry and the town organizations of trade 
were in decay, making way for national systems to rise. 
Monastic ideas of religious life had fallen into contempt ; 
the monkish learning and philosophy of the Middle Ages 
no longer satisfied minds wakened by the morning of a 
new day. 

At such a time, it seems strange that the English 
people should apparently have forgotten their Magna 
Carta and their Model Parliament, and should have been 
giving an almost servile obedience to kings who called 
parliaments when it suited them to do so, com- 
manded legislation as they chose to have it, lutenessof 
and took money from their subjects very nearly 
as they pleased. But possibly the revival of strong king- 



256 



RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. 



[1485 



ship for a time was needed to start the nation with 
energy in the race it had to run. We shall see, per- 
haps, that the national spirit found some tonic in it, 
after all. 

120. King and Parliament under Henry VII. Henry 
VII. was a stranger in England when he came from exile 

to the throne. His title 
to the crown depended, 
even more than that of 
Henry IV., on the na- 
tional will. Yet Henry 
exercised, and transmitted 
to his successors, a more 
independent sovereignty 
than England had yielded 
to her kings for many gen- 
erations in the past. This 
resulted from the fact, al- 
ready shown, that, while 
Parliament continued to 
be, in form and theory, all 
that it had been made under Henry III., Edward I., and 
Henry IV, the nation had lost control of it, and the king 
had become able to use it as an instrument, more often 
than he was checked by it as a coordinate power. 

121. Strong Government. Henry saw two principal 
duties before him when he came to the throne : (1) to 
heal the factions in the kingdom ; (2) to establish a firm, 
strong government. It can be said with justice that he 
did both. The blended white and red rose in his badge 
gave a meaning to his marriage with the Princess Eliza- 
beth which his actions did not belie. He was not the 
chief of a party, as five of his predecessors had been, but 
a really national king. He was a cool, hard-tempered, 




HENRY VII. 



14S5-1486] ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 257 

calculating man ; not generous nor genial, but well-bal- 
anced in most of his views. 

Especially by one measure at the outset of his reign, 
Henry showed his determination to amend the " want of 
governance " complained of during the whole century 
past. He struck at the root of faction and turbulence, 
by effectually attacking that organized lawlessness which 
the terms " livery and maintenance " represent (see sec- 
tion 1 10). He did this by the agency of a court 

, . , t, ■■ . ....... Origin of 

to which Parliament gave special jurisdiction the star 

i r-r, . , ,, - Chamber. 

and powers. 1 his court, however (known after- 
wards as the Star Chamber, from the place in which it 
sat), though it accomplished a great good at the begin- 
ning, became a source of deep mischief in the end. 

122. Insurrections and Pretenders. That the nation 
was generally contented with Henry's government is 
proved by the little support given to numerous attempts 
against him. Repeated insurrections, set on foot or 
encouraged by enemies outside of the realm, more than 
within it, came to naught. So completely had rival 
claims to the crown been extinguished, except in the 
person of the Earl of Warwick, son of the late Clarence, 
whom Henry confined in the Tower, that those who 
would rally rebellion against Henry had to bring forward 
pretenders, to personate either Warwick or one of the 
young princes murdered by Richard III. They began, 
in Henry's second year, with a fictitious Warwick, who 
turned out to be an Oxford lad, of obscure Lambert 
origin, named Lambert Simnel. A mischievous SimneL 
Oxford priest tutored Simnel for the part he was to play, 
and took him to the English district of Ireland, where 
the Yorkists were strong. There he was received with 
enthusiasm as the Earl of Warwick, escaped from the 
Tower and preparing to demand the English crown. 



258 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1487-1497 

He was solemnly crowned at Dublin, and received from 
his pretended aunt, Margaret of Burgundy (sister of 
Edward IV. and second wife and widow of Charles the 
Bold of Burgundy), a force of 2000 German soldiers, 
well-trained and equipped. With these and an Irish 
following he invaded England, entering Lancashire and 
marching towards York. Few Englishmen joined him, 
and he was easily defeated and taken prisoner at Stoke. 
Henry treated the pretender with a wise contempt, spar- 
ing his life and setting him to work as a turnspit in the 
royal kitchen. 

Simnel's ignominious downfall did not deter another 
rash youth from venturing on the stage with the same 
audacious play. The actor this time was not even an 
Englishman, but a native of Flanders, Perkin Warbeck 
by name, and he was introduced to public notice as 
Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the two sons of 
Edward IV., rescued by some means from the fate which 
was supposed to have overtaken both. Like Simnel, 
Warbeck made his first appearance among the sympa- 
Perkin thizing Irish, and was just as warmly received, 
warbeck. From Ireland he went to France, and thence 
to Flanders, where the dowager Duchess Margaret was 
again ready to play the affectionate aunt. For five years 
( 1 492-1 497) the Perkin Warbeck comedy went on, with 
Margaret, Archduke Philip, the Emperor Maximilian, 
the King of France, the King of Scotland, and various 
minor actors taking parts. 

In Scotland, Warbeck was entertained as a prince, and 
married to a noble Scottish wife. With King James 
IV. of Scotland he made a miserable, bootless raid across 
the English border, and that ended the Scottish episode. 
Finally, in the autumn of 1497, he ventured from Ireland 
into Cornwall, where a revolt against onerous taxes had 



1497-15 01 ] 



ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 



259 



just occurred. A few thousands of the people joined him 
and he led them to Exeter ; but failing to take that city- 
he lost courage and deserted his men, flying to sanctuary 
in the Abbey of Beaulieu. Again it was the -warbeck-s 
king's shrewd policy to treat the pretender with end- 
contempt. His life being spared, he made a full confes- 
sion of his fraud. He was sent to London to be paraded 
through the streets, before being committed to some 
kind of custody that was evidently lax, for he foolishly 
ran away. On being caught he was confined in the 
Tower ; and there he plotted with the unfortunate Earl 
of Warwick another attempt at escape. When the 
scheme was discovered, 
Henry committed the 
most cruel injustice of 
his reign, by bringing 
both Warwick and War- 
beck to trial for trea- 
sonable conspiracy and 
taking their lives. 

123. Foreign Affairs. 
Enmity between Eng- 
land and France had be- 
come traditional ; but 
when the French inva- 
sions of Italy (see pages 
204 and 250) caused j eal- 
ous alarm among other 

powers, and an opposing league was formed, Henry bar- 
gained sharply with the allies before he took their side. 
When he joined the league at last, it was on terms which 
left him out of the fighting, and which brought about a 
marriage alliance that seemed to be of great advantage to 
both the nations concerned. It was a marriage between 




KATHARINE OF ARAGON. 



260 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [14SS-1503 

Henry's eldest son, Arthur, and Katharine of Aragon, 
Spanish the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isa- 
mamage. b e rj a f Spain, which took place in 1501, the 
bride being sixteen and the bridegroom fifteen years old. 
A few months later, the bridegroom died, and negotia- 
tions were opened for a marriage of Katharine to the 
king's younger son, his namesake, Henry, then heir to 
the throne ; but some years passed before that fateful 
marriage was brought about. 

Another marriage, which had more fortunate results, 
„ . . between Henry's daughter, Margaret, and King 

Union of r, 

theEngiish James IV. of Scotland, was effected in 1 qo^. 

and Scot- J . . . , , , , . , , 

tish After exactly a hundred years, this led, as we 

crowns 

shall see, to a union of the English and Scottish 
crowns. 

124. Commerce and Discovery. More than any of 
his predecessors, Henry seems to have been attentive to 
the commerce of England, and employed his shrewdest 
diplomacy in making openings for English traders in 
markets abroad. The English were hampered by many 
exclusive privileges given formerly to foreign traders, 
which Edward IV., repaying his obligations to the Han- 
sards, had lately renewed and increased. Henry VII. ex- 
erted himself, not always in fair ways, perhaps, to release 
the commerce of the country from these injurious bonds. 

It was in Henry's reign that Columbus went begging 
from court to court for a fleet and a commission to sail 
westward and to find what the unexplored ocean con- 
tained. While he waited wearily in Spain, the indomita- 
ble Genoese sent his brother Bartholomew to the English 
king ; but the unlucky brother, captured on the way and 

stripped by pirates, was long in reaching Lon- 
Columbus. ^ F J l ' . s . & 

don, and much delayed m his mission when 

there. Apparently he had encouragement from Henry 



1488-1497] ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 261 

at last, but how much is not known. Whatever it may 
have been was too late. Before Bartholomew Columbus 
reached Spain again, Christopher had obtained his little 
fleet of ships and had set sail on the memorable voyage. 

But, having missed the glory and the empire won by 
Isabella of Castile, Henry became her earliest competitor 
in the exploration of the New World. He took into his 
service another Italian, John Cabot, and sent him across 
the Atlantic in 1497. John Cabot was the first The 
to touch the shore of the American continent, Cabots - 
which Columbus had not done ; but the point at which 
he reached it, probably in or near the St. Lawrence Gulf, 
is not known. Of a second voyage made in the follow- 
ing year by John Cabot, or his son, Sebastian, or both, 
the results are almost equally in doubt. 

125. Ireland. As Henry neglected nothing within 
the compass of his government, he gave an attention to 
the affairs of Ireland which that country had not received 
since its partial conquest by Henry II. ; but, unfortu- 
nately, what he did only confirmed and established the 
hostile separation of the English race in Ireland from 
the Celts. The Anglo-Irish and the Celtic 

, . , . , . r , Treatment 

Irish were on nearly the same plane of rude of the 
half-civilization ; yet they did not and could 
not become one people, because of the senseless efforts 
that were continually made, by harsh laws, to keep them 
apart. Intermarriages, foster-nursing, use of the Irish 
language, observance of ancient Irish laws, enjoyment of 
Irish sports and games, had all been prohibited, with no 
effect except to keep hatred alive. 

By the measures of Henry VII., these falsities and 
wrongs were more lastingly fixed. Sir Edward Poynings, 
sent as Lord Deputy to Ireland, in 1494, extorted from a 
Parliament held in the English Pale two acts that were 



262 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1509 

famous, or infamous, in later Irish history as the " Poyn- 
ings Laws." One of them ordained that no Parliament 
should be held in Ireland until the king's council in Eng- 
Poynings l an d had given permission, and had approved 
Laws. j n ac j vance the acts proposed to be passed. 
The other extended to Ireland the operation of all Eng- 
lish laws then in force. Thus even the English in 
Ireland were paralyzed politically, and kept for centuries 
in that helpless state ; while law after law was contrived 
for breaking intercourse between them and their " wild 
Irish " neighbors (so called), and for making peace impos- 
sible. 

126. The Last Years of Henry VII. In the later 
years of his reign, Henry became, without doubt, one of 
the most oppressive extortioners that England had had 
among her kings. He had shrewdly avoided laying heavy 
burdens of general taxation on the country, thinking it 
safer to do great wrong to some than to risk the discon- 
tenting of all ; but he seems to have actually revived 
some of the worst of the practices of the past. By this 
despotism he made himself hateful to a large class of his 
subjects, and two unscrupulous lawyers, Empson and 
Dudley, who were the principal agents of the king in 
collecting "fines for fictitious offences" and the like, 
paid with their lives, after their master died, for the 
indignation they had helped to excite. Henry died in 
April, 1509, at the age of fifty-two. 

127. Henry VIII. Familiar as we all are with por- 
traits of Henry VIII., which show a remarkable grossness 
of figure and face, we cannot easily picture to ourselves 
the handsome young prince that he is said to have been 
when he came to the throne. But he was famed abroad 
ftor personal comeliness, and equally famed for the ac- 
complishments he possessed. He had been carefully 



1509-1511] 



ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 



263 



educated, and he had a fairly good mind ; but his egotism, 
his wilfulness, and his selfishness had no bounds. Those 
traits in the king became the cause of infinite suffering 
to England; but his subjects were so filled with admira- 
tion of his stature, his strength, his fine presence, and 
the bluff freedom 
of his manner to- 
ward them, that 
they were quite 
heedless of his 
character in the 
first years of his 
reign. 

One of Henry's 
first acts was to 
marry Katharine 
of Aragon, his bro- 
ther's widow, and 

First mar- ne ls salc * 

"age. t0 have 
done so less from 
policy than from 
choice. Katharine 
was twenty-five, 
while he was nine- 
teen, but her person was attractive to him then, and her 
manners pleased. For two years he seems to have been 
contented with the enjoyments of a gay and extravagant 
court. Then he was seized with the ambition to play a 
conspicuous part in the eyes of the world. An iniquitous 
league for the despoiling of Venice had been followed by 
what was styled a "Holy League" against 
France, formed by Ferdinand of Spain, 
Emperor Maximilian, and the pope. Henry was easily 




HENRY VIII. 



The Holy 
the League. ' 



264 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1511-1513 



Flodden 
Field. 



drawn into the League, but only to be betrayed. His 
allies used him to bring pressure on France for secretly 
securing their own terms of peace. 

Meantime, while Henry was making war in France, his 
Scottish brother-in-law, James IV., acting on the old 
friendship of Scotland for France, invaded England and 
suffered the awful defeat of Flodden Field, 
where he and 10,000 of his countrymen fell. 
This brought Henry's nephew, James V., the son of his 
sister Margaret, to the Scottish throne. 

128. Cardinal Wolsey. In wrath, on discovering the 
bad faith of his partners in the Holy League, Henry 

changed his whole pol- 
icy and determined on 
a close alliance with 
France. And then it 
was that Thomas Wol- 
sey, who had been a 
chaplain at court for 
some years, and lately 
the king's almoner, 
rose to leadership in 
council and ministry. 
The French war had 
given Wolsey an op- 
portunity to show his 
varied abilities, and es- 
pecially his great organ- 
izing power. Henry, 
with all his egotism, 
could see the worth of such a servant, and he was willing 
that the livery of the service should be as splendid as 
Wolsey, who loved magnificence, could desire. There- 
fore Wolsey became the managing minister of the king, 




THOMAS WOI.SEY. 



1514-1516] ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 265 

for state affairs in general, but particularly in the diplo- 
matic field, and his labors were rewarded with greater 
dignities and revenues (in church offices and livings) and 
a prouder state than any English minister had ever en- 
joyed before. But in Henry's relations with his minister 
there is no sign of a personal friendship, or of any influ- 
ence that ever moved his egotistic will. Wolsey was 
simply his magnificent servant, for doing in a splendid 
and powerful way what his majesty saw fit to have done. 

Wolsey accomplished the alliance which Henry desired. 
Louis XII. of France, an old man, broken in health, hav- 
ing lately become a widower and desiring a young wife, 
was offered and accepted the hand of Henry's The French 
younger sister, Mary, a charming girl of seven- alliance - 
teen. With the marriage went a treaty of close alliance, 
and it was followed by negotiations for a joint attack on 
Castile. But all the fine scheming was thwarted by the 
death (January, 15 15) of the elderly bridegroom, three 
months after he received his bride. 

Louis XII. was succeeded in France by Francis I., a 
young man of twenty-four, who threw himself into ambi- 
tious undertakings of war with a dash and an early suc- 
cess that kindled jealousies in Henry's breast. For some 
time Wolsey's diplomatic skill was employed in secret 
intrigues with Swiss mercenaries and with the 
emperor, to bring about attacks on Francis in 
Milan, which 'England should pay for without her hand 
being seen. But all parties in the business were cheat- 
ing one another in a knavish game. Wolsey, during this 
time, was made cardinal by the pope. He was already 
Archbishop of York, and held two bishoprics besides. 

129. England between Charles V. and Francis I. 
In 1 5 16, Ferdinand of Aragon died, and his grandson, 
Charles, the heir of many realms, Spanish, Austrian, and 



266 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1516-1520 

Burgundian, then came on the European stage. Of 
other potentates in Europe, none but the King of France 
could pretend to rival this young prince, then sixteen 
years old. England, the small island kingdom, had no 
weight yet that could go into the scale against these two. 
That she should even aspire to the holding of the scales 




ENGLISH WARSHIP WHICH CONVEYED HENRY VIII. TO 
FRANCE. 



between them was a daring thought ; but it was the 
thought that Wolsey conceived and carried out with 
matchless dexterity and success. England was raised 
from a low place in the eyes of Europe to one of extraor- 
dinary height, when measured by her true national rank 
and power. She figured as the arbiter of the continent, 
and was regarded for a few years as the keeper of the 
public peace. 



1519-1522] ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 267 

Early in 15 19, Maximilian died, and Charles and Fran- 
cis were competing candidates for the imperial crown. 
Henry, too, offered his name to the electors ; but hardly 
with serious hopes. The prize fell to Charles, and in his- 
tory he is known best by the most sounding of his many 
high titles, — as the Emperor Charles V. Henry was 
now courted by both Francis and Charles, and his inter- 
course with them was so managed by Wolsey as to make 
a profound impression on the public mind. In May, 
1520, the emperor visited him in England ; the 
next month Henry and the King of France had of the three 

. . ~ . . . monarchs. 

a famous meeting near Calais, at a place so 
magnificently prepared that it was known as " The Field 
of the Cloth of Gold;" and in July Charles and Henry 
had a second interview at Calais. The great cardinal 
was a figure in these proceedings as distinguished as the 
kings, and both Francis and Charles offered influence in 
his favor at the next election of pope. The parties were 
playing a game of duplicity all round ; but England, her 
king, and her cardinal were made conspicuous by the 
game. 

130. King Henry against Luther. At this time, 
Henry was watching with anger the religious agitation 
roused in Germany by Luther ; and, when a tract by 
Luther on " The Babylonian Captivity of the Church " 
appeared, he wrote a reply to it, which he sent in sump- 
tuous binding to the pope. The pope in return praised 
the king's book highly, and gave him the title of " De- 
fender of the Faith," which he accepted with great pride. 

131. Renewed War with France. In 1522, England 
took part with the emperor in a war that had broken 
out the year before between Francis and Charles. Her 
part was inglorious, and she had no profit from the 
war. National expenditure had risen to an unparalleled 



268 



RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1522-1527 



height ; taxation had become the heaviest and arbitrary 
modes of raising money the most oppressive ever known. 
There were angry mutterings and threatening signs. 
Even Henry, who tried to shut his eyes to everything 
that crossed his will, could see that he was making a 
failure again in war, and Wolsey began to manoeuvre 
for a changing of sides. Decisive reasons for the change 
were supplied when Francis suffered a great defeat at 
Pavia and was carried prisoner to Spain. Charles was 
then too triumphant ; Francis was so helpless that he 
was willing to pay heavily for Henry's aid. Wolsey 
wrung from the latter, accordingly, two millions of 
crowns, at which cost, after long bargaining, the King 
of France, in 1527, obtained the English alliance, which 
did him little good. 

132. Henry's Wish to divorce Queen Katharine. 

Costly and profitless as the 
war had been, the French 
alliance was hateful to 
English feeling ; and Wol- 
sey, already detested by 
the nobles as an upstart, 
and odious to the people 
as minister of the king's 
oppressions, became the 
object of a new storm of 
wrath. Public hostility 
could matter little, so long 
as the all-powerful king 
stood by him ; but that 
support was slipping away. 
Certain evil desires had 
arisen in Henry's despotic mind. If the great cardi- 
nal could help him to gratify them, well and good ; if 




AXNE BOLF.VN. 



1527-153°] ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 269 

not, let the cardinal beware. The king, in a word, had 
tired of his Spanish wife, whose charms were Anne 
fading ; and a young lady, Anne Boleyn, had Bole y n - 
lately appeared at court, who pleased his eye. It came, 
therefore, to the king's mind, after eighteen years of 
marriage with his good wife Katharine, that she had 
been his brother's widow ; that his union with her was 
sinful, because forbidden by Holy Writ ; that the pope 
who granted a dispensation for it had no power to do so ; 
that the disapproval of Heaven was shown in the fact 
that no son born to Katharine had lived ; and that, there- 
fore, his conscience required him to put her away. 

To give him freedom for another marriage, he demanded 
that the reigning pope, Clement VII., should annul his 
predecessor's dispensation ; and Wolsey, in the face of 
the fact that Katharine's nephew, the emperor, held Pope 
Clement in his power, was given the impossible task of 
bringing this about. When he failed (1529) The f a uof 
he was in disgrace, — a useless servant, cast Wolse y- 
off and thrown out to his many enemies, to be hunted 
down. At first they were satisfied to strip him of his 
offices and estates ; but after a few months they found 
pretexts for a charge of treason, and the king ordered 
his arrest. Being already broken in health, the shock 
was fatal, and the great cardinal died (November 29, 
1530) on the journey, as a prisoner, to London from 
York. 

133. The Divorce. — The King's Marriage to Anne 
Boleyn. Henry's purpose was not shaken by his failure 
at Rome. If the pope would not give him authority to 
divorce his wife, he would seek authority elsewhere. On 
the suggestion of one of his chaplains, Thomas Cranmer, 
he sent agents abroad to obtain opinions from learned 
doctors of the law, against the validity of the papal dis- 



270 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1529-1532 

pensation which had allowed him, in 1509, to marry his 
brother's widow. By more or less bribery, as it seems, 
the desired opinions were secured, from universities in 
Italy and France, while Oxford and Cambridge were 
forced to pronounce to the same effect. 

Armed with these favorable opinions, the king bore 
down all resistance at home to what he desired to do. 
He had found the new chief servant that he needed 
Thomas i n one Thomas Cromwell, a London attorney, 
Cromwell. w ^\o was more capable than Wolsey for the work 
now in hand. Cromwell and Cranmer entered into the 
business with zeal ; but the chancellor, Sir Thomas More, 
one of the purest, noblest, most admirable men of his 
age, stood aloof. 

In 1529, an obedient Parliament had been assembled 
— the first in six years — packed with royal servants, 
elected at command. Its main business was to intimi- 
date the clergy by threatening bills, which it did with 
such effect that the Convocation, or clerical assembly of 
the church in England, was driven, in 1 531, to declare 
the king to be " the singular protector and only supreme 
The king governor of the English church, and, as far as 
heado^the trie ^ aw °f Christ permits, its supreme head." 
church. _a, still more submissive document was extorted 
from the leading clergy the next year. The situation 
had then become one which impelled Sir Thomas More 
to withdraw from office, and he resigned. The king had 
professed great affection for More, until he found an 
immovable conscience underlying the sweet nature of 
the man, and from that moment the honest chancellor 
was doomed. 

Henry's projects were helped at this juncture by the 
death of Archbishop Warham of Canterbury, who had 
opposed the divorce. Cranmer was made archbishop ; 



1533-1534] ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 271 

and then, feeling sure of a decree at home that could 
be set against the pope's, Henry was secretly married 
to Anne Boleyn (January, 1533). In May, cranmer-s 
Cranmer, as primate, held an ecclesiastical court, action - 
in which he tried the question of the king's marriage to 
Katharine and pronounced it void. A few days later, he 
gave a second decision, which sanctioned the marriage 
to Anne, and she was publicly crowned as queen. 

134. The Separation of the Church of England from 
Rome. In March, 1534, the final sentence of Rome was 
pronounced by Pope Clement, declaring Katharine to be 
Henry's legitimate wife. Before this was known in Eng- 
land, the king had begun to take steps for casting off 
the authority of the Roman pontiff, making the church 
in England an independent church, in order to place his 
divorce and re-marriage under cover of English law. By 
successive acts of Parliament, every kind of payment 
hitherto made to the Roman See was stopped ; every 
species of license and dispensation formerly obtained 
from the pope was forbidden ; the king's first The Act of 
marriage was declared void, while that with Succession - 
Anne was affirmed, and a daughter, Elizabeth, lately 
born to Anne, was recognized as the true heir to the 
crown. To refuse acceptance by oath to this last-named 
act, or to speak against it, or to use words denying the 
titles of the king, the new queen, or their heirs, or to 
refuse to acknowledge the king as being " the Supreme 
Head in Earth of the Church of England," were made 
treasonable crimes, punishable with death. 

135. The Feeling of the English People. The scan- 
dalous business of the king's divorce and second marriage 
was plainly hateful to all classes of his subjects, for 
they lost no opportunity to manifest their sympathy 
with Queen Katharine and her daughter Mary, and their 



272 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1534-1535 



dislike and scorn of Anne Boleyn. But the feeling with 
which they saw their church severed from Rome is less 
certainly known. There is little evidence at this time 
of any widespread revolt of religious opinion or feeling 
in England against the papacy or the papal church, like 
that which swept Germany and other parts of the conti- 
nent into the movement of the Protestant Reformation. 

Apparently, in fact, 
there was less of a re- 
ligious agitation in the 
English mind during 
these days than there 
had been in Wiclif's 
time ; and the coun- 
try at large would 
seem to have been less 
prepared than then for 
a movement of separa- 
tion from the Roman 
church, so far as mo- 
tives from religious 
feeling or opinion are 
concerned. On the 
other hand, there had been so long a habit in England 
of resisting papal exactions and disputing papal claims 
that the idea of separation may easily have been received 
with no general shock. 

136. Execution of More, Fisher, and others. But, 
whatever the feeling of the country may have been, it 
was not consulted by the arrogant king. Much or little 
as there may have been of a Reformation spirit in the 
country, he made no concessions to it, accepted no sup- 
port from it. His purpose was not to rid England of 
papacy, but to set up a papacy or pontificate of his own, 




SIR THOMAS MORE. 



I535-I536] ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 273 

in the place of that of the Bishop of Rome. He intended 
to be, for England, both pope and king. The Lollard and 
the Lutheran were rebels against his supremacy as much 
as against that of the Roman pope, and he pursued them 
with rope and brand. Every kind of difference with 
the despot had become a deadly crime. Sir 
Thomas More, whom all men loved, and the of More 
good Bishop of Rochester, John Fisher, who 
was venerated by all, went to the scaffold (1535) because 
they could not, by oath, give approval to the divorce. 
One John Frith was burned for holding a Protestant view 
of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, while three Car- 
thusian monks were hung and quartered for denying 
the king's headship in the church. And the ferocity 
of the tyrant was not yet half roused. 

137. Execution of Anne Boleyn. — Henry's Third 
Marriage. In January, 1536, the divorced Queen Kath- 
arine died, and by her death she seems to 

have doomed her rival, Anne. The king had Queen 
been tiring of the latter for some time, but 
feared to reopen the old divorce question if he tried to 
make himself wifeless again. But no sooner was Kath- 
arine out of the way than he determined to be rid of 
Anne Boleyn, and his creature, Thomas Cromwell, lost 
no time in finding the means. On charges of misconduct 
and of conspiracy, which few who have investigated the 
matter give credit to in the least, she was condemned 
and beheaded (May, 1536), while five unfortunate gentle- 
men, accused of complicity in her crime, shared her fate. 
Henry married his third wife, Jane Seymour, on the day 
after Anne's head fell. 

138. Suppression of the Monasteries. The minister 
chosen by the king for the exercise of his new spiritual 
powers, as Supreme Head of the church, was no man 



274 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1537-1547 

of piety, — no clergyman even, — but the unscrupulous 
attorney, Thomas Cromwell, whom he appointed to be 
" vicar-general," and who proceeded with instant zeal 
to "reform" the church by seizing its wealth. That 
many of the monasteries misused the vast wealth that 
they held in trust, and that their usefulness, for the 
most part, was being lost, is hardly open to doubt ; but 
it is equally beyond doubt that public interests and moral 
considerations had little to do with Cromwell's proceed- 
ings against them. 

His first "visitation " and report led to an act of Par- 
liament, in 1536, which dissolved about 380 of the smaller 
communities, and placed their property at the disposal of 
the king. This measure was one of the causes of a re- 
volt, that year, in the north, which bore the 

The Pil- . 

grimageof singular name of "The Pilgrimage of Grace." 

Grjic© 

It was an unsuccessful rising, but it furnished 
a pretext for making the overthrow of monasteries com- 
plete, and that work was accomplished during the next 
three years. Besides the monasteries, which seem to 
have exceeded 600 in number, more than 2000 chantries, 
or endowed chapels, and numerous allied institutions, were 
suppressed. The land acquired by the king from these 

suppressions was enormous in extent, while the 

The spoils. 

jewels, the gold, and the plate taken from them 
and from the shrines of saints, which were stripped soon 
after, represented an incalculable spoil, mostly seized to 
be squandered by the king. " During the last eight years 
of his life he [the king] gave away about 420 monasteries 
Division of or s ^ tes °^ monasteries. ... His bounty was 
the spoils. no t bestowed, it must be confessed, according 
to public virtue or service ; the palace got much of it ; 
every cook who could please his palate with a dish, every 
ruffler who spread a finer cloak before his eyes, might 



1536-1539] ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 275 

look to have. His gaming debts are said to have made 
away with a great deal ; and, besides the creatures of the 
palace, there were land-jobbers and blood-suckers of every 
kind." 1 

The confiscation of the property of the monasteries 
was followed, in 1545, by a statute which placed at the 
disposal of the king " the property of all col- 

11 ii i-ii., ^ Danger to 

leges, fraternities, brotherhoods, and gilds, and universi- 
it is the opinion of some historians that " the 
universities, with all their colleges, would have been 
swept into the all-devouring exchequer " if Henry had 
not died when he did. 

139. The Ten Articles and the Six Articles of Pre- 
scribed Belief . In 1 536, Henry's subjects were definitely 
told what they might and what they might not believe, in 
religious matters, by the publication of a manual of Ten 
Articles, originally drafted by the royal hand. In these 
articles, says Mr. Froude, " the principles of the two re- 
ligions [Catholic and Protestant] are seen linked together 
in connection, yet without combination." They " were 
debated in convocation, and passed because it was the 
king's will. No party were pleased." Nevertheless, 
" they were sent round through the English counties, to 
be obeyed by every man at his peril." 2 

Only for three years, however, did this kingly mix- 
ture of Roman and Protestant doctrine represent the 
permitted beliefs of Englishmen. Then their spiritual 
dictator, having had an angry dispute with some German 
theologians, turned sharply against the reform- The Six 
ing creeds and issued a new edict of Six Arti- Artlcles - 
cles, which restored the Roman faith substantially 
complete. These articles were embodied in an act of 

1 Dixon, Hist, of the Church of England, ch. x. 

2 Froude, Hist, of Eng., ch. xii. 



276 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1538-1539 



Parliament, with death penalties prescribed that were 
brutal in the extreme. The sufferers in the persecution 
that followed are said to have been " a very considerable 
number." 

140. Reginald Pole and his Family. In 1538, Regi- 
nald Pole, a cardinal at Rome, whose mother, the Count- 
ess of Salisbury, was the niece of Edward IV., attacked 

Henry in a book, " On 
the Unity of the 
Church." The pope 
(Paul III.) soon after- 
wards issued a Bull of 
Deposition, which he 
had held back for three 
years, commanding 
Henry's subjects in 
England to recognize 
him no longer as king. 
There were many, no 
doubt, in England, who 
welcomed both the 
book and the bull ; but 
no movement among them is shown to have occurred. 
Nevertheless, three of the near relatives of the cardinal 
were promptly put to death, and, after an interval, the 
gray head of his mother, the Countess of Salisbury, was 
delivered to the executioner's axe. 

141. Henry's Fourth and Fifth Marriages. — The 
Fall of Cromwell. — Execution of Katharine Howard. 
In 1537, Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, had given 
birth to a son, but died soon after. He remained a wid- 
ower for two years, and was then persuaded by Cromwell 
to marry a German princess, Anne of Cleves, as a step 
towards allying himself with the Protestant German 




THOMAS CROMWELL. 



1534-1540] ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 27/ 

states ; but when the poor princess arrived she did not 
please him, and was divorced almost as soon as wed. A 
fifth wife, Katharine Howard, was then taken by the 
king from his own court. He was angry at his disap- 
pointment with Anne of Cleves, and characteristically 
turned his anger against the man who had suggested the 
unsatisfactory match. Cromwell's unfaltering services in 
the past could not save him from his master's present 
wrath. Arrested on a charge of treason, he was con- 
demned without a hearing, by bill of attainder in Parlia- 
ment, and hurried to the block. Before the year (1540) 
ended, Henry had discovered misdoings in Katharine 
Howard and sent her to the same death. 

142. Ireland and Wales. A rebellion in Ireland, in 
1534, led to measures there which more nearly accom- 
plished the subjugation of the island than any that had 
gone before ; and Henry, not satisfied with being styled 
Lord of Ireland, as his predecessors had been, took the 
title of King. He created an Irish peerage, and by 
distributing earldoms among the turbulent chiefs, and 
giving them a share in the pillage of Irish monasteries, 
he sought to reconcile them to the English rule. But 
he more than spoiled the effect of this policy by roughly 
attempting to force upon the Irish people his recon- 
structed church. Their previous attachment to Rome 
and the pope had been very slight ; but this made it pas- 
sionately strong, and raised the most lasting of all bars 
to a union between the English and themselves. 

Wales was more wisely dealt with in Henry's reign, 
by being finally incorporated into the English 
kingdom, with parliamentary representation. 

143. Scotland. Henry made repeated efforts, without 
success, to persuade his nephew, the young king of Scot- 
land, James V., to follow his example in dealing with the 



278 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1537-1546 

church. He could not overcome the French influence 
at the Scottish court, which was increased, in 1538, by 
the marriage of James to a French princess, Mary of 
Guise. At length, Henry, in 1542, revived the old claim 
of supremacy for the English crown over the Scottish, and 
began war. A Scottish army, entering Cumberland, was 
disgracefully routed at Solway Moss, and King James 
was so affected by the disaster that he died soon after. 
A few days before his death, news came to him that his 
queen had given birth to a daughter. The daughter 
was that Mary, Queen of Scots from her infancy, whose 
tragical story is known to all the world. 

Attempts to make peace, on the basis of a betrothal 
of the infant Queen of Scots to Prince Edward of Eng- 
land, were defeated by the French party in Scotland, 
led by Cardinal Beaton, a bold and able man. 

-A.llifLB.C6 

with Henry went again into alliance with the Em- 

peror Charles, and carried on a fruitless war in 
both Scotland and France for the next two years, burn- 
ing Edinburgh and taking Boulogne, but getting no ad- 
vantage from either exploit. 

144. The Last Days of Henry VIII. Peace was made 
with France and Scotland in 1 546, and near the end of 
that year the king, already diseased, and too gross in body 
to support his own weight, became seriously ill. He was 
still capable, however, of taking one more life. The 
aged Duke of Norfolk, and Norfolk's son, the Earl of 
Surrey, had been faithful supporters of his throne ; but 
they were unfriendly to the relatives of Jane Seymour, 
Henry's third wife and mother of his son and heir. The 
Seymours wished to be rid of them, and easily persuaded 
the dying tyrant to have charges of high treason brought 
against both. Surrey, the most graceful poet of his time, 
was hurried to the block; his father was saved by the 



1509-1547] ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 279 

timely death of the king. Norfolk was to have been 
beheaded on the morning of January 28, 1547 ; the king 
died on the night of January 27. 

Henry had married a sixth wife, Katharine Parr by 
name, in 1543. She had no children. The family left 
by him consisted of Mary, the daughter of Henry's 
Katharine of Aragon, Elizabeth, the daughter heirs - 
of Anne Boleyn, and Edward, who was Jane Seymour's 
son. Edward succeeded his father, being ten years old. 

145. Learning and Literature. The " New Learn- 
ing," as it was called, of the Renaissance, — the learning 
and thinking that were inspired by study of Greek and 
Latin literatures, by study of the Bible in its original 
tongues, and by observation of man and the world as they 
are, — had entered England before Henry VIII. came to 
the throne, and good seed from it was sown in the early 
years of his reign, by such teachers and scholars as John 
Colet and Sir Thomas More ; but it was chilled by his 
blighting despotism, and had no wholesome growth while 
he lived. If we take out of the literature of his reign 
the " Utopia " of More and the poems of Surrey, both 
of them murdered victims of the king, there is little left 
that deserves to be named. 

The licensing of four publications of the Bible in the 
English language is one redeeming act to be credited 
to Henry VIII. He had hunted Tyndale, the translator 
of the Bible, to death, in the Netherlands, caus- The E 
ing him to be strangled and burned (1536), lishBiDl e- 
before it occurred to his infallible mind that the Bible 
might be a serviceable weapon against the pope. Moved 
by that idea, he then suffered a number of successive 
revisions of the translation to be printed and sold. 

146. The Economic Condition of England. It is the 
opinion of the economic historian, Professor Rogers, that 



280 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [i 547 

Henry VIII. wrecked the prosperity of England during 
most of his reign. "His rapacity and waste," says the 
professor, " were immeasurable and all-devouring." The 
towns suffered with the country, and their decline be- 
tween 1 5 1 5 and 1544 is a well-marked fact. 1 

Nothing else that Henry did wrought, probably, such 
great and lasting misery as the debasement of the cur- 
rency which he persistently carried on, and which his 
successor continued, until the English shillino- 

Debase- 

mentofthe piece, in 1 55 1, contained less than one seventh 
of the silver that had been in the shilling of 
1527. This was royal robbery of the poor on an infa- 
mous scale. Prices generally were raised more than 
100 per cent., while wages rose but 50. 

One cause of suffering to a large class, for which the 

king was not responsible, was an increasing abandonment 

of crop culture for sheep-raising, which turned 

Decline of , r r , , , , . 

agricui- large areas of arable land into pasture, and 
tended to the inclosure of commons and open 
fields. This threw many out of agricultural employment, 
arid benefited the greater landowners at the expense of 
the yeomanry and the farming class. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

119. The Opening of the Modern Era. 
Topics. 

1. Change in society, trade organization, and religious life. 

2. Reaction in political life. 

References. — Colby, 129-133; Traill, ii. 441-443, iii. 131-144, 
153-167; Rogers, ch. xii. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What churchman did Henry VII. 
appoint to office under him? (Traill, ii. 464.) (2.) Henry's ap- 
pointment led to what power ovei the monasteries ? (Guest, 
387.) (3-) What was found to be their condition ? (Guest, 387; 
Traill, ii. 467. 474, 475.) 

1 Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, vol. iv. ch. iii. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 281 

120. King and Parliament under Henry VII. 
Topics. 

1. Henry a constitutional monarch. 

2. Lack of spirit in the Parliament. 
Reference. — Gairdner, Henry VII., ch. xiii. 

121. Strong Government. 
Topics. 

1. Henry's duties. 

2. His character and policy. 

3. His action against livery and maintenance. 
References. — Montague, 92-104 ; Traill, ii. 452-464. Star 

Chamber: Gardiner, i. 348; Bright, ii. 359; Green. 302, 303. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What was Henry's attitude toward 
the enforcement of the law ? (Guest, 375, 376.) (2.) What was 
the value to England of the Tudor policy ? 

122. Insurrections and Pretenders. 

Topics. 

1. Satisfaction with Henry. 

2. Lambert Simnel : a, his pretensions; b, disposal by Henry. 

3. Perkin Warbeck : a, his role ; b, raid from Scotland ; c, exe- 

cution. 
Reference. — Gairdner, Henry VII., chs. iv., vii. 

123. Foreign Affairs. 
Topics. 

1. Henry and the league against France. 

2. Marriages of the royal family. 
Reference. — Gairdner, Henry VII., chs. ix., xi. 

124. Commerce and Discovery. 

Topics. 

1. Henry's interest in English trade. 

2. Henry and Bartholomew Columbus. 

3. Henry and John Cabot. 

References. — Gardiner, i. 356; Moberly, 76, 77; Traill, ii. 496- 

498; Colby, I33-I35- 
Research Questions. — (1.) Where did the English do most of 

their trading on the continent ? (2.) If other nations traded there. 

what would be the condition of the money? (3.) What are 



282 ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 

money-changers? (4.) What modern institution sprang out of 
money changing and hoarding? (5.) Where was the first Eu- 
ropean bank founded ? (6.) Name all the voyages made to Amer- 
ica during this reign, and show the lands explored. 

125. Ireland. 
Topics. 

1. Henry's foolish policy with Ireland. 

2. Poynings Laws : a, their content ; b, their effect. 
Referenxe. — Gairdner, Henry VII., ch. viii. 

126. The Last Years of Henry VII. 

Topics. 

1 His methods of extortion and his agents. 
2. His death. 

Reference. — Gardiner, i. 357, 358. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Describe the operation of "Mor- 
ton's Fork." (Guest, 375.) (2.) Why did Henry use these 
methods of getting money instead of parliamentary grants ? (3.) 
In what position toward his Parliament did his wealth place him ? 
(4.) What other circumstance increased Henry's absolutism ? 
(Taswell-Langmead, 366.) 

127. Henry VIII. 

Topics. 

1. Henry's early qualities. 

2. His marriage and part in continental affairs. 

3. Battle of Flodden Field. 

References. — Moberly, ch. viii. ; Colby, 137-139. 

Research Questions. — (1.) With what feeling toward his peo- 
ple did Henry begin his reign? (Gardiner, ii. 361.) (2.) How 
did lie feel toward men of learning? (Green, 310; Moberly, 
1 10, in; Guest, 391.) (3-) How was he disposed toward the 
navy? (Moberly, 103, 108, 109, 206.) (4.) What policy of his 
father's did he follow out ? (Moberly, 106.) (5.) What feeling 
for the papacy did he hold in his early years ? (Moberly, 114.) 

128. Cardinal Wolsey. 
Topics. 

1. Wolsey's services and his magnificence. 

2. The alliance with France. ■ 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 283 

3. Henry's intrigues against France and Wolsey's promotion. 
References. — Gardiner, ii. 363-366,369-384; Bright, ii. 375- 

386; Green, 320-331 ; Moberly, 136-150, 156-167; Creighton's 

Cardinal Wolsey ; Guest, 393-399 ; Colby, 137-142. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What was Wolsey's ambition? 

(Moberly, 137.) (2.) What were his conspicuous talents? (3.) 

Tell of his splendor. (Moberly, 138.) 

129. England between Charles V. and Francis I. 
Topics. 

1. Charles V.'s territory and England's increased importance. 

2. The competition for the imperial crown. 

3. Henry courted by Charles and Francis. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 377, 378. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Point out on the map the posses- 
sions of Charles V. (2.) Give some of the most striking fea- 
tures of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. (Creighton, Cardinal 
Wolsey, ch. iv.) 

130. King Henry against Luther. 
Topic. 

1. Henry as the defender of the faith. 

References. — Gardiner, ii. 377-379; Green, 320, 321 ; Moberly, 
150-156 ; Traill, iii. 34-54. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What was Luther's early attitude 
toward Rome ? (Moberly, 154.) (2.) Compare his doctrines at 
this time with those of Wiclif. (Green, 239.) (3.) " The Baby- 
lonish Captivity" and Henry's reply. (Moberly, 155.) 

131. Renewed "War with France. 
Topics. 

1. England's part and Charles's success. 

2. Wolsey sells the English alliance to France, 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 369-372. 

132. Henry's Wish to divorce Queen Katharine. 

Topics. 

1. Hostility to Wolsey on the part of the people. 

2. The king's desire for a divorce. 

3. Wolsey's failure with the pope and his fall. 
Reference. — Moberly, 156-167. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What were some of the reasons for 



284 ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 

Wolsey's unpopularity with the people and with the king ? (Mo- 
berly, 148, 158; Gardiner, ii. 372.) (2.) What effect upon Parlia- 
ment did the fall of the powerful minister have ? (Ransome, 106, 

107.) 

133. The Divorce. — The King's Marriage to Anne 

Boleyn. 
Topics. 

1. Cranmer's and Cromwell's assistance; More's opposition. 

2. Henry declared the head of the English church. 

3. Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury sanctions Henry's 

marriage. 

Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 385-389. 

Research Questions. — (1.) How was Parliament's control over 
taxation in the reign of the Tudors shaken ? (2.) How did Henry 
VIII. get money ? (Montague, 95, 96.) (3.) What difference be- 
tween the attitude of Henry VII. toward Parliament and that of 
Henry VIII. ? (Gardiner, ii. 385.) (4.) What force did Parlia- 
ment give to Henry's proclamations ? (Montague, 98.) (5.) 
What was the effect of this upon their own power ? 

134. The Separation of the Church of England from 

Rome. 
Topics. 

1. Sentence of the pope and his authority cast off. 

2. Punishment for refusal to accept the Act of Succession. 
References. — Gardiner, ii. 374-391. Acts of treason and su- 
premacy: Gardiner, ii. 392, 393; Bright, ii. 395; H.Taylor, ii. 
75, 76. 

135. The Feeling of the English People. 
Topic. 

1. Feeling: a, toward the king ; b, toward the church. 
Reference. — Moberly, 170-178. 

136. Execution of More, Fisher, and others. 

Topics. 

1. The king's purpose. 

2. His opposition to pope and reformers and his executions. 
References. — Moberly, 182-184. Sir Thomas More : Moberly, 

387,388; Green, 314-316; Guest, 392. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 285 

137. Execution of Anne Boleyn. — Henry's Third 

Marriage. 
Topics. 

1. Death of Katharine and charges against Anne. 

2. Marriage with Jane Seymour. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 398-400. 

138. Suppression of the Monasteries. 

Topics. 

1. Thomas Cromwell as vicar-general. 

2. Dissolution of the smaller communities. 

3. The Pilgrimage of Grace and overthrow of clerical institu 

tions. 

4. The plunder taken by the king and his use of it. 

5. Further legislation against colleges, fraternities, etc. 
References. — Gardiner, ii. 394, 397-400; Bright, ii. 410,411; 

Green, 338, 339; Colby, 147-150; Moberly, 187-200; Traill, iii. 
54-65; Gibbins, 83-85 ; TasjteH-Langmead, 431-436. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What famous shrine did Henry 
strip? (Guest, 410, 411.) (2.) Trace Henry's growing opposition 
to the church. (Moberly, 192.) (3.) What did he do for the 
Bible ? (4.) How would the suppression of the monasteries raise 
up defenders for the reformation ? (Montague, 94.) 

139. The Ten Articles and the Six Articles of Pre- 
scribed Belief. 
Topics. 

1. Content of the Ten Articles. 

2. Restoration of the Roman faith in the Six Articles. 
References. — Gardiner, ii. 395-400; Bright, ii. 412. 

140. Reginald Pole and his Family. 

Topics. 

1. Pole's attack upon Henry, and the pope's bull. 

2. Henry's revenge. 
Reference. — Green, 346, 347. 

141. Henry's Fourth and Fifth Marriages. — The Fall 

of Cromwell. — Execution of Katharine Howard. 
Topics. 

1. Anne of Cleves and Katharine Howard. 



286 ARBITRARY MONARCHY. 

2. Execution of Cromwell and Katharine Howard. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 412-415. 

142. Ireland and Wales. 
Topics. 

1. Creation of Irish peerage. 

2. Results of his attempt to reconstruct the Irish church. 

3. Incorporation of Wales. 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 401-404. 

143. Scotland. 
Topics. 

1. Henry's attempts to influence James. 

2. Battle of Solway Moss and birth of Mary, Queen of Scots. 

3. Attempts at peace and new alliance with Charles V. 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 404-409. 

144. The Last Days of Henry VIII. 

Topics. 

1. Last days of the king. 

2. Execution of Surrey. 

3. Family left by Henry. 
Reference. — Moberly, 231-235. 

145. Literature and Learning. 

Topics. 

1 . The Renaissance in England. 

2. Henry and the Bible. 

References. — The new learning: Gardiner, ii. 366-36N ; Mo- 
berly, 79-94; Green, 303, 304, 320; Colby, 135-137; Traill, iii. 
85-98. Erasmus: Guest, 388-390; Green, 305-316; Traill, iii. 
86-89. 

146. The Economic Condition of England. 

Topics 

1. Effect of Henry's reign on England. 

2. Debasement of the coinage and increase in sheep-raising. 
References. — Trade and industries: Gibbins, 82-99; Cunning- 
ham and McArthur, 66-68; Bright, ii. 467-472; Moberly, 122- 
130; Green, 326, 327 ; Traill, iii. 114-131 ; Rogers, chs. xi., xii. 
Debasement of the coinage : Gibbins, 85 ; Cunningham and 
McArthur. 142-146: Traill, iii. 124-126; Rogers, 342, 343. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PROTESTANT REFORMATION AND CATHOLIC REACTION. 

Tudor Sovereigns: Edward VI. — Mary. 1547-1558. 

147. Edward VI. and the Protector Somerset. A 

boy-king was once more on the English throne. Author- 
ized by Parliament, his father had left a will which ap- 
pointed a council of regency to administer government 




EDWARD Vlt AND COUNCIL. 



in Edward's name until he should be eighteen years old. 
A majority of the council were " men of the new learn- 
ing," so called, who favored much more of a change and 



288 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1547-1548 

reformation in the church than mere secession from 
Rome. Its most important member was Edward Sey- 
mour, Earl of Hertford, the elder of the young king's 
uncles ; the next in influence was Cranmer, the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury ; but Hertford was really supreme, 
and was made, by the first act of the council, Lord Pro- 
tector of the Realm. By another of its earliest acts he 
was created Duke of Somerset ; his brother, Thomas 
Seymour, was appointed High Admiral of England, and 
titles and liberal estates from monastery lands were freely 
distributed to members of the council and their friends. 

148. The English Wooing of Mary, Queen of Scots. 
Henry VIII., in his arrogant way, had tried to force the 
Scots to betroth their infant queen, Mary, to his son 
Edward, and had failed. The ruling influence then in 
Scotland was that of Cardinal Beaton ; but the cardinal 
had been murdered, in 1546, by certain fierce reformers, 
whom he cruelly persecuted, and the reformation party 
in Scotland now favored a renewal of Henry's design. 
On their invitation, Somerset led an army to Edin- 
burgh once more, to capture a bride for his young 
Pinkie king ; and again the savage courtship failed, 
cieugh. 'r/kg s C0 |- s W ere badly beaten at Pinkie Cleugh, 
six miles from their capital ; but they refused more stub- 
bornly than ever to yield the hand of their five-year-old 
queen. The next year they sent her to France, betrothed 
to the dauphin, and she was reared at the French court 
(the court of Catherine de Medici), an alien to her own 
country and an enemy of the reform. 

149. Cranmer and the Reformation. It was soon 
understood that the new government inclined to do more 
than had yet been clone in the reformation of the church, 
and reformers in some parishes, of London and else- 
where, began at once, without waiting for authority, to 



1547-154S] PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



289 



pull down the images of saints, destroy crucifixes, and 
erase paintings from the walls. In a few months, orders 
issued by the Protector made the work of destruction 
general and complete. "The churches were new white- 
limed, with the Commandments written on the walls." 1 

How far the reforming zeal of the Protector sprang 
from sincere beliefs is a question not easy to decide. It 
is certain that he exposed 
himself, like many other 
men of that time, to seri- 
ous doubts on this point, 
by the greediness with 
which he helped himself 
to riches taken from the 
church. In the case of 
Cranmer, who was the 
guiding mind of the refor- 
mation under Edward 
VI. , the doubts that touch 
his character are of quite 
another kind. He was no 
doubt a sincere believer 
in the doctrines of the re- 
formation, and was hon- 
est in helping forward the separation of the English 
church from Rome ; but it is hard to see honesty in the 
pliant service that he gave to Henry VIII., throughout 
the business of the divorce and the variation of Henry's 
religious commands. It seems plain that he cranmer's 
was lured by ambition into a place where no- character - 
thing but moral courage could have kept his integrity 
safe, and such courage he did not possess. He became 
the tool of a despotic master, whom he dared not resist. 
1 Froude, Hist, of England, ch. xxiv. 




THOMAS CRANMER. 



290 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1547-1552 

But Henry's death set him free, and what he did during 
the next six years may be supposed to represent the con- 
victions of his mind. 

Edward's first Parliament, in 1547, made a sweeping 
repeal of most of the church legislation of Henry VIII., 
including the Six Articles, and the statute book was 
cleansed of many of the monstrous enactments of the 
last reign. All earlier acts against heresy were repealed ; 
but it remained possible, under the common law, to burn 
men and women for forbidden opinions, as was proved 
before long. The king was again declared to be the 
supreme head of the church, and denial of his 

R6116W6(1 

piiiage of spiritual supremacy was again made treason- 
able and punishable by death. The confisca- 
tion of lands endowing chantries, colleges, and gilds was 
renewed and enlarged, and that which Henry had not 
lived long enough to take was now mostly gathered in, 
and distributed in the same rapacious way. 

Meantime, a commission of divines, with Cranmer at 
the head, was busy in the preparation of an English 
Prayer Book, to supersede the Latin service in the 
church. Their work was adopted, in 1549, by an Act of 
Uniformity, which prescribed its use in every church 
and forbade all worship in other forms. Three years 
later it was revised by a second commission, 

The Prayer 

Book of and a few changes have since been made ; but 
the Prayer Book now used in the English church 
is substantially as it was then composed. 

150. Suffering. — Discontent. — Insurrection. Ap- 
parently the people at large were not prepared for the 
great changes in doctrine and worship that had now been 
forced upon the church. In many towns the new beliefs 
had spread widely ; but, generally, through the country, 
and particularly in the west and north, the innovations 



1549-155*] PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 291 

were disliked. This disaffection lent strength to a sharper 
discontent, produced by a state of suffering among the 
laboring poor that was probably worse than England had 
ever known before. The diminution of tillage, the in- 
crease of pasturage, the inclosure of common lands, the 
debasing of the currency, begun by Henry and increased 
by the Protector, all combined to spread poverty and dis- 
tress ; while the charitable food-giving of the monasteries 
was stopped. The rich had been enormously enriched 
with the lands and treasure of the religious houses and 
the gilds ; the poor had had nothing from the overturn- 
ings of the time but increase of hardship and want. 

Risings in a dozen counties, during 1 549, were most of 
them locally put down. The more alarming insurrec- 
tions were in Devon and Cornwall, where 4000 men are 
said to have perished in battle or by the executioner, 
before order was restored, and in Norfolk, where Ket , s 
a wealthy tanner, named Ket, became the leader rebelll0n 
of 20,000 insurgents of the peasant class. Of Ket's 
army, 2000 were slain, and Ket himself was hanged. 
German and Italian mercenaries were employed against 
both these revolts. 

151. The Execution of Lord Seymour and the Pall 
of Somerset. In the spring of 1549, Lord Seymour, 
the younger brother of the Protector, was accused of 
treasonable ambitions and brought to the block. Before 
that year closed, Somerset himself had been cast from 
his high seat and was at the mercy of his foes. Besides 
offending many people, he had alarmed the landowners, 
by proposing to check their inclosure of common lands. 
He was stripped of his offices and of a large part of his 
wealth, and was confined for some months in the Tower. 
Then he was released and enjoyed liberty and life for 
nearly two years; but when, in 1551, he made some 



292 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1551-1553 

movements that caused alarm, he was brought to trial and 
sentenced to death. 

152. Ascendency of the Duke of Northumberland. 
The council of regency resumed the authority which the 
Protector had practically absorbed ; but John Dudley 
(son of the extortionate minister of Henry VII.), Earl 
of Warwick at first, but soon made Duke of Northum- 
berland, became the leader in affairs. There was no 
gain to England in the change, for rapacity, waste, and 
corruption in the government went on as before, and the 
land was in continued distress. 

Since the repeal of the statutes against heresy, ingen- 
ious lawyers had found authority in the common law for 
destroying forbidden opinions by fire, and that authority 
was used twice before the close of Edward's reign. The 
Burnings ^ rst victim was a woman, Joan Bocher, who 
for heresy, j-^jj some peculiar view of the incarnation of 
Christ ; the other was a Hollander in London whose 
belief was unitarian, denying the divinity of Christ. 
Both were tried before commissions of which Cranmer 
was the head ; and Latimer, the most eminent preacher 
of his day, was one of those who sent Joan Bocher to the 
stake. 

To establish a more absolute standard of authorized 
belief than the Prayer Book supplied, forty-two 

TheThirty- . . . . .. y . . . . y . 

nine articles of faith were set forth in 1553, m the 

name of the king. Subsequently these forty- 
two articles were reduced to the thirty-nine now main- 
tained in the English church. 

153. The Illness and Death of Edward VI. — Scheme 
to change the Succession. In the winter of 1553, the 
young King Edward, always delicate, showed marked 
signs of a fatal disease, and the prospect of his early 
death caused alarm among those who were carrying on 



I 553l 



PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 



293 



the government in his name. According to the Act of 
Succession, as finally shaped, the crown would pass from 
Edward to his elder half-sister, Mary, whose hostility to 
all the changes in the church, and generally to those 
who had brought them about, was well-known. Natu- 
rally, it was the desire of the latter to prevent her acces- 
sion, and Northumberland, who had everything at stake, 
devised a scheme to that end. He persuaded Edward 
that, even without au- 
thority from Parlia- 
ment, he might dictate 
the succession by will. 
The young king, ac- 
cordingly, signed a 
will, on his deathbed, 
in which he left the 
crown to neither of his 
sisters, but to a lady 
descended from his 
father's sister, Mary. 
That younger sister of 
Henry VIII., who mar- 
ried the elderly King 
of France (see section 
128), had taken for a 
second husband Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and 
had left three granddaughters, the eldest of whom was 
Lady Jane Grey. It was to this great-granddaughter of 
Henry VII., in the female line, that Edward bequeathed 
his crown. 

Of all the plotting in her behalf Lady Jane knew 
nothing at all. She was an innocent girl, not LadyJane 
yet sixteen, sweet in character and quite re- Grey - 
markable in mind, with a passion for learning that was 




LADY JANE GREY. 



294 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1553 

rare in her sex at that time. She already wrote in Latin 
and Greek, had the use of Italian and French, and was 
mastering Hebrew when a sorrowful fate brought her 
studies to a close. To make sure that his scheme should 
be profitable to himself, Northumberland secured her 
marriage to Guildford Dudley, his son ; but, pleading to 
be left at home until her husband and herself grew older, 
she stayed with her mother while the fatal conspiracy 
went on, knowing nothing of the web that was being 
woven round her feet. Nearly at the last hour, when 
Edward was at the point of death, she was taken to her 
father-in-law's house and told of the destiny prepared for 
her ; but she could not be made to realize it as a fact 
until, after the young king had breathed his last (July 6, 
1553), the lords of the council knelt to her as queen. 
Then she was overwhelmed, and fell fainting to the 
floor. So innocent was Lady Jane Grey of ambition, or 
of any guilt in the plot for which she was used ! 

154. The Failure of the Proclamation of Queen Jane, 
and the Accession of Queen Mary. Northumberland 
had reckoned that his possession of the government, and 
his probable ability to secure the person of the Princess 
Mary, with the Protestant support he might expect, would 
enable him to carry his project through. He miscalcu- 
lated on every point. Princess Mary had been fore- 
warned and prepared ; secret information was hurried 
to her on the instant of Edward's death, and she fled to 
friends in Norfolk, proclaiming herself queen and sum- 
moning support as she went. The feeling of the coun- 
try was shown from the first moment to be on her side. 
Protestants as well as Catholics resented the selfish pro- 
jects of Northumberland, and knew nothing of the virtues 
of Lady Jane Grey. When heralds proclaimed the acces- 
sion of the latter (July 10), Protestant London was omi- 



1553] 



CATHOLIC REACTION. 



295 



nously silent and cold. When Northumberland led forth 
his troops, to pursue Mary into Norfolk, he found that 
they could not be trusted, while the people were every- 
where hostile, and he gave up his attempt. With his own 
voice, at Cambridge, he proclaimed Mary to be queen ; 
the next morning he was arrested and sent to the Tower. 
Mary entered London on the 3d of August, met at the 




QUEEN MARY TUDOR, OR MARY I. 

gates by her sister Elizabeth, who had quietly waited 
the turn of events. At first she showed a generous dis- 
position, and is said to have been willing to save even 
Northumberland from the block ; but her counsellors 
would not consent. Besides Northumberland, only two 
of his confederates were then put to death. It is to the 
credit of Queen Mary that she resisted strong urging, 
from her cousin, the Emperor Charles, and from others, 



296 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1553 

to put Lady Jane Grey to death at that time ; but the 
guiltless victim of Northumberland's plot was kept in 
prison, with her husband and other friends, and their 
fate was but postponed. 

155. The First Year of Mary's Reign. If we remem- 
ber that the gross wronging of Mary's mother was the 
beginning of all that had been done in the English 
church, and that Mary herself had been continually 
branded and shamed in the proceeding, we cannot think 
it strange that she came to the throne with a passion- 
ate desire to undo the whole work. From the first mo- 
ment, she did not disguise her wish. , 

When her first Parliament came together, in Novem- 
ber, it was found willing to restore the ancient service in 
the church, and to repeal all statutes which recognized 
the divorce of Henry VIII. from his first wife, but so 
strongly opposed to a restoration of papal authority that 
the queen was compelled to defer that part of her design. 
Acts were passed which annulled practically everything 
that had been done in church matters during Edward's 
reign, putting them back to about the state in 

Action in . > i , ^<- 

church which they were left at Henry s death. So far, 
apparently, and no farther, a large body of the 
supporters of Mary desired to go with her in restorative 
work. Several conservative bishops who had been de- 
posed from their sees in the late reign — Gardiner of 
Winchester and Bonner of London among the number — 
used their influence to keep the reaction within such 
bounds ; but Mary had the obstinacy of her father, and 
only bided her time. 

Another purpose, more opposed to the feeling of her 
Mary's subjects, was equally fixed in the queen's mind. 
t^PMiip 6 ^ ne had determined to marry Philip of Spain, 
of spam. — |-] ie emperor's son, — her junior by ten years. 



i 5 54] CATHOLIC REACTION. 297 

She was Spanish in every sympathy, and Philip was her 
ideal of a man. Parliament petitioned humbly against 
the marriage, but with no effect. 

156. Wyatt* s Rebellion. Feeling against the mar- 
riage of the queen to her Spanish cousin was probably 
strong enough to produce a revolution, if a capable leader 
had called it out ; but the men who undertook to do so 
were wanting in boldness, as well as in position and 
weight. Only one of the chiefs in a wide conspiracy 
performed his part with courage to the end. Sir Thomas 
Wyatt, son of the poet, rallied 15,000 men in Kent (Jan- 
uary, 1554), and marched on London; but, having no 
support from other quarters, he was overpowered. The 
queen was in serious danger for a time, but faced it with 
the courage that belonged to her race. 

If the Tudor courage in Mary's nature was called out 
by this abortive rebellion, the Tudor temper was equally 
hardened by its effect. Mercy had no longer any toler- 
ance in her heart. On the morning after Wyatt was over- 
come she signed a warrant for the execution of Lady Jane 
Grey and Guildford Dudley, who, as captives in 

J . Execution 

the Tower, had no possible connection with his of Lady 

_ Jane Grey. 

attempt. 1 hree days later they suffered death. 
At the same time, the queen's sister, Elizabeth, was sent 
to the Tower, with a hope, plainly shown, that some 
ground might be found for putting her to death. Eliza- 
beth's name had been used by the conspirators, and their 
plan had been to place her on the throne ; but the pru- 
dence of her conduct, then and always during Mary's 
reign, gave no opportunity to connect her with treasonable 
designs. Of those concerned in Wyatt's rebellion, some 
sixty or eighty were beheaded and hanged, including the 
Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane Grey. 

157. Papal Authority restored. The marriage of 



298 



RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. 



[i554 



Mary and Philip took place in July (1554). In Novem- 
ber a new Parliament was convoked, and the elections 
had been managed so carefully that it proved to be a 
body obedient to the will of the queen in every particular 
save one. That one was the restoration of the property 
taken from the monks, the friars, and the chantry priests. 
Almost every opulent family in the kingdom is said to 

have had some 
share in the divi- 
sion of that wealth, 
or to have acquired 
some interest in it, 
and Parliament, re- 
presenting the op- 
ulent class in the 
main, would do 
anything that the 
queen demanded 
except to surrender 
those spoils. It 
drove, in fact, an 
obstinate bargain 
with the queen and 
with Cardinal Pole, 
who appeared as 
the legate of the pope, by which, on one side, the owners 
of church property were guaranteed against disturbance 
in their possession, and the realm of England received 
papal absolution " from all heresy and schism ; " on the 
other side, all acts against the supremacy of the Roman 
See were repealed, and the heresy laws were restored, 
including the horrible act " for the burning of heretics " 
which had disgraced the reign of Henry IV., a hundred 
and fifty years before. That the hand of Philip was in 




PHILIP II. 



I555-I558] CATHOLIC REACTION. 299 

this, he left proof in a letter of his own, written to his 
sister Juana : " With the intervention of the Parliament," 
he wrote, " we have made a law, I and the most illustrious 
queen, for the punishment of heretics and all enemies of 
holy church ; we have revived the old ordinances of the 
realm, which will serve this purpose very well." And 
he was right. They served the purpose well. 

158. The Persecution. Early in 1555, the enforce- 
ment of the act " for the burning of heretics " was be- 
gun. Rogers, a canon of St. Paul, was the first to be sent 
to the stake. A deposed bishop, Hooper, was the next to 
suffer, followed after an interval by the three most con- 
spicuous victims of the persecution, Cranmer, Latimer, 
and Ridley. Cranmer alone sought to save Cranmerat 
himself by renouncing his beliefs ; but his cour- the stake - 
age rose when death had to be faced, and he met it 
manfully, thrusting his right hand, which had signed a 
recantation, into the fire to be first burned. 

From that time the persecution was relentlessly pressed 
in every part of the land. Says the Roman Catholic 
historian, Dr. Lingard, who writes of the painful subject 
with great fairness of mind : " The persecution continued 
till the death of Mary. Sometimes milder counsels pre- 
vailed ; and on one occasion all the prisoners were dis- 
charged on the easy condition of taking an oath to be 
true to God and the queen. But these intervals were 
short ; and, after some suspense, the spirit of intolerance 
was sure to resume the ascendency." Making allowance 
for condemnations that were not entirely for theological 
beliefs, Dr. Lingard concludes that "in the space 
of four years almost two hundred persons per- of the 
ished in the flames for religious opinion." 1 
Other writers have placed the number burned at nearly 
1 Lingard, Hist, of Eng., vol. vii. ch. iii. 



300 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1555-1558 

three hundred.' The contemporary Lord Burleigh wrote 
that, " by imprisonment, by torment, by famine, by fire, 
almost the number of four hundred were lamentably de- 
stroyed." 

Was it Mary and her Spanish husband, or Gardiner, 
her chancellor, or Cardinal Pole, who became Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, that inspired the persecution most ? 
There are differences of view, but the greater weight of 
judgment is against the queen. The German historian, 
The euiit Professor Ranke, who examines the question 
of Mary. with no partiality, believes a statement made 
by Gardiner, that the chief impulse to the revival of the 
barbarous old heresy laws came from Mary herself, and 
is convinced " that the persecutions would never have 
begun without her." His final judgment is that "no ex- 
cuse can free her memory from the dark shade which 
rests on it." 1 But who can doubt that being the wife of 
the " man of blood " from Spain had much to do with 
making her the " Bloody Mary " of English history ? 

159. The Close of Mary's Reign. It is probably the 
fact that Mary's attachment to the Roman creed and 
worship was shared by a majority of her subjects ; but 
she failed to kindle among them her own fury against 
the preachers and professors of another faith. It is 
manifest that the persecutions were abhorrent to the 
people at large, and that the Roman cause in England was 
profoundly weakened by their effect. Her Spanish mar- 
riage grew continually more hateful to all classes, after 
Philip had succeeded to his father's sovereignty, and 
especially after England, in 1557, had been drawn into 
the endless Spanish war with France. The country 
was in a state of suffering, deepened even from that 
of the preceding reign. The vigor of the nation seemed 
1 Ranke, Hist, of Eng., vol. i. book ii. ch. viii. 



1558] CATHOLIC REACTION. 301 

to be lost. It had no standing in Europe ; it could do 
nothing with success in war. At last, even Lossof 
Calais, which it had been the pride of England Calais - 
to hold on French soil for two hundred years, was lost 
(1558). 

There was plenty of rebellion in English hearts, much 
conspiring talk, much intriguing with great numbers 
of English refugees in France ; but cautious men were 
kept quiet by dread of what Philip might do with the 
fleets and armies of Spain. The queen was as unhappy 
as her kingdom. After a few months of marriage, her 
beloved Philip had left her, and he made her but one 
brief visit more. She had prayed for a son and none 
was given her. The heresy among her subjects proved 
too obstinate to be crushed. Even the pope had taken 
the side of France against Philip and herself, and had 
ordered Cardinal Pole back to Rome. Everything had 
disappointed her hopes. In the autumn of 1558 Deathof 
she sickened of a fever then raging in England, Mar y- 
and on the 17th of November she died. A few hours 
later, Cardinal Pole breathed his last. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

147. Edward VI. and the Protector Somerset. 
Topic 

1. The council of regency and its membership. 
References. — Bright, ii. 422, 423. History of regency: Taswell- 

Langmead, 349-359; H. Taylor, ii. 109-114. 
Research Question. — (1.) Describe the state of mind of the 

clergy under the Protector. (Green, 360.) 

148. The English Wooing of Mary, Queen of Scots. 

Topics. 

1. Henry VIII.'s design toward Mary, Queen of Scots. 

2. Renewal of Henry's design and battle of Pinkie. Cleugh. 



302 PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 

3. Betrothal of Mary, Queen of Scots. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 425-427. 

149. Cranmer and the Reformation. 
Topics. 

1. Destruction of images, paintings, etc. 

2. Sincerity of the Protector and of Cranmer. 

3. Repeal of the Six Articles and renewal of Act of Supremacy. 

4. New confiscation and preparation of English Prayer Book. 
Reference. — Green, 357, 358. 

150. Suffering. — Discontent. — Insurrection. 
Topics. 

1. Condition of popular belief. 

2. Grounds for discontent. 

3. Effect of changes upon rich and poor. 

4. Ket's rebellion. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 430-433. 

Research Question. — (i.) What evil proceeding of Henry 
VI IP's time was followed by Edward VI.? (Gardiner, ii. 420.) 

151. The Execution of Lord Seymour and the Pall of 

Somerset. 
Topics. 

1. Seymour's ambitions and death. 

2. Somerset's downfall and execution. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 429-434. 

152. Ascendency of the Duke of Northumberland. 
Topics. 

1. The new leader. 

2. Executions for heresy. 

3. Articles of faith. 
Reference. — Green, 359-362. 

153. The Illness and Death of Edward VI. — Scheme 

to change the Succession. 
Topics. 

1. Sickness of the king. 

2. Northumberland's plot to change the Act of Succession. 

3. Lady Jane Grey : a, her character ; b, her marriage ; c, her 

innocence of treason. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 303 

References. — Gardiner, ii. 420. Lady Jane Grey : Gardiner, ii. 
420-423; Bright, ii. 441, 444-447, 45*5 Green, 361-363; Colby, 
152-154; Guest, 419-423; H.Taylor, ii. 132, 134; Green, H. E. 
P., ii. 232-242. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Explain "Edward's plan" as ar- 
ranged by Northumberland. (Green, 361.) (2.) What made it 
easy for the duke to get Edward's consent to the plan? (3.) 
Why was Henry VIII.'s will more binding than that of Edward 
VI ? (Gardiner, ii. 420.) 

154. The Failure of the Proclamation of Queen Jane, 

and the Accession of Queen Mary. 
Topics. 

1. Northumberland's miscalculation. 

2. Mary's action and the people's loyalty to her. 

3. Mary's attitude at first toward her enemies. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 442-447. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What influences were paving the 
way for Mary's accession, even in the reign of her father? (Mo- 
berly, 174.) (2.) What political reaction in her favor at the pro- 
clamation of Lady Jane? (Green, 361.) 

155. The First Year of Mary's Reign. 
Topics. 

1. Natural reason for Mary's religious attitude. 

2. Her first Parliament. 

3. Her marriage. 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 421-423. 

Research Questions, (i.) In what way was Mary's accession 
a new departure for England ? (Taswell-Langmead, 396.) (2.) 
What political objection did the English have to the marriage of 
Mary with Philip? (Guest, 421.) (3.) What religious objection 
did they have ? (Guest, 422.) 

156. Wyatt's Rebellion. 
Topics. 

1. Uprising because of the queen's marriage. 

2. Mary hardens her heart. 

3. Death of Lady Jane Grey and action against Elizabeth. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 449-452. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What events of Mary's youth would 



304 



CATHOLIC REACTION. 



naturally prejudice her against Elizabeth? (2.) How would the 
question of legitimacy keep Mary and Elizabeth always hostile ? 
(3.) What religious reason for this was there also ? 

157. Papal Authority restored. 
Topics. 

1. The new Parliament. 

2. Opposition to restoring church property. 

3. Parliament makes a bargain with Mary. 

4. Philip's part in it. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 453. 

158. The Persecution. 

Topics. 

1. The first victims. 

2. Cranmer at the stake. 

3. Extent of the persecution and Mary's responsibility. 
Reference. — Green, 363-368. 

159. The Close of Mary's Reign. 
Topics. 

1. The feeling of the people on the persecution. 

2. Decline of the nation and the loss of Calais. 

3. Queen and people alike unhappy. 

References. — Green, 366, 36S, 369 ; Guest, 434; Traill, iii. 191- 
193. State of society in these reigns : Bright, ii. 462-484 ; Creigh- 
ton, Age of Elizabeth, 19-21 ; Traill, iii. 230-274. 



LINEAGE OF THE TUDOR FAMILY OF ENGLISH 
SOVEREIGNS, FROM HENRY VII. 



Henry VII., 

14X5-1500, 

married 

- Elizabeth, 

(daughter of 

Edward IV.). 



Margaret, 

married 

James IV. 

of Scotland. 

Henry VIII., 

i5 9-i547 

married 

1. Katharine 

of A rago7i. 

2. Anne Boleyn. 

3. Jane Seymour. 



James V., 

of Scotland, 

married 

Mary 
of Guise. 



Mary, 
I5S3-I558. 



Elizabeth, 
15S8-1603. 

Edward VI., 
'547-1553- 



Mary, 
Queen of Scots 



CHAPTER XIV. 

the elizabethan age. 

The Last of the Tudors : Queen Elizabeth. 
1558-1603. 

160. The Accession of Elizabeth. The death of Mary 
was a relief at which England rejoiced with no disguise ; 
the crowning of Elizabeth was accepted by all parties 
without apparent dissent. Yet what did England know 
of this new sovereign, — this young woman of twenty- 
five years, who had lived a secluded life ? It is hardly 
possible for us to realize the uncertainty with which she 
was given the enormous powers of the crown. All the 
questions of religion and the church that had twice been 
turned and overturned, within eleven years, were once 
more flung into a royal lottery wheel, to be settled by 
a drawing blindly made. Of any other settlement for 
those questions than by the will or the opinion or the 
caprice of the crowned sovereign, whether man or woman 
or child, there was little dream in those days. What 
Elizabeth would do with the church, what creed she 
would dictate to her subjects, what attitude towards 
the pope she would take, none knew, and all parties had 
hopes. 

161. The Character of Elizabeth and. her Reign. In 
the character of Elizabeth, strength and weakness were 
singularly mixed. Her strength was in a spirit that 
knew little of fear. It was the courage of her father, 



306 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1558 

without the heartless stolidity that he showed ; and it 
was made so inspiring by her sex that it stimulated the 
nation, at a critical time, more than any valorous leader- 
ship by a man could have done. Of intellectual strength, 
there is little to be found in her conduct of affairs. She 
was hesitating, capricious, deceitful ; swayed often by 
trivial influences ; guided by no principle ; giving infinite 
trouble to the able ministers who served her with the 
patience of wise men. Like her father, she had good 
judgment of men, choosing them for her service with 
few mistakes ; and she was more faithful to them than 
he, taking from them as much guidance as her capri- 
ciousness would permit. She was hardly less wilful than 
Henry, and hardly less egotistic ; but her selfishness was 
not so supreme. She identified herself with England, 
whereas Henry had identified England with himself. 
She made the nation proudly conscious of her love. 

Circumstances gave a remarkable distinction to Eliza- 
beth's reign. Between its beginning and its ending Eng- 
land was born into a new life, through marvel- 
Eiizabeth lous changes in the mind and spirit of the 
people. When, therefore, we look back to that 
astonishing age, we see the throned figure of the queen 
in a glorified light, and may easily give her more credit 
for the grandeur of her reign than is her due. 

162. The New Reformation of the Church. The in- 
tentions of Elizabeth concerning the church were promptly 
intimated by the appointment of Sir William Cecil (after- 
wards Lord Burleigh) to be her secretary, and evidently 
to be the counsellor in whom she placed her trust. Cecil 
had been secretary to Edward VI., and was known to be 
a Protestant at heart, though he had been kept in public 
service during Mary's reign, and had outwardly conformed 
to the Roman rites. His political ability was very great, 



308 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1559 

and he retained Elizabeth's confidence for forty years. 
A plainer notice of royal intentions was given in a pro- 
clamation, soon issued, which forbade preaching by the 
clergy, " until consultation might be had in Parliament 
by the queen and the three estates ; " but ordering that 
worship should continue meantime in the established 
form. 

Late in January, 1559, Parliament assembled. Pro- 
testant candidates had been recommended to the electors 
by Elizabeth, and a Protestant Parliament was 

New Act of , , . it ^ i 

Suprem- duly sent up, to be as obedient to the new 
queen as the Catholic Parliament had been to 
her predecessor. A new Act of Supremacy was passed, 
which again severed the English church from Rome, 
requiring bishops and clergy, and all laymen in office, 
to renounce obedience to the pope. This act repealed 
once more the terrible statutes against heresy which 
Mary had revived. 

The Act of Supremacy was followed by a new Act 
of Uniformity, which restored to use the second Prayer 
Book of Edward VI., with some slight changes, forbid- 
ding any other liturgy, with penalties of impris- 

New Act of , , . , . , - 1 • i 

Uniform- onment, even tor lire in the case of a third 
offence. If Elizabeth and her counsellors aban- 
doned the fagot and stake as instruments of religious 
persuasion, they intended, nevertheless, that no opinions 
except their own should have a voice. 

Of the bishops, all but one refused the oath required, 
and were removed ; but the clergy in general are said to 
have submitted to the law, and the mass of the people 
gave obedience to it by due attendance at 
clergy and church. Two kinds of very earnest opposition 
were kept alive, however : one among ardent 
Catholics, who maintained hidden priests and worshipped 



1559] THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 309 

in secret places according to the ancient rites ; the other 
among Protestants, who demanded far more of a change 
in creed and worship than the queen and Parliament had 
prescribed. 

163. The Question of the Queen's Marriage. Next 
in importance to the questions of religion was the ques- 
tion of the marriage of the queen. Her subjects were 
exceedingly anxious that she should become a wife and 
mother, to remove all doubt as to the succession to the 
throne. The first proceeding of her first Parliament was 
humbly to convey to her the national wish. She gave 
a polite reply, but made it plain that the matter, in her 
view, was one to be settled by herself. If, however, she 
came to any decision in her own mind, she never allowed 
it to be known. The question remained open and irritat- 
ing for many years. 

Queen Elizabeth showed many and lasting signs of 
affection for Lord Robert Dudley, son of the late Duke 
of Northumberland, and was supposed to be intending to 
give him her hand. Dudley, who became Earl Th eEariof 
of Leicester, is under suspicion to this day of Leicester - 
having caused his wife, Amy Robsart, to be murdered, 
in order to free himself for the royal marriage to which 
he aspired ; but his guilt has not been proved. It is 
certain that he was most unfit in all respects to be the 
husband of the queen. Quite probably she had resolved 
from the first to share her throne with no man, and to 
give the influence of a husband to none. 

164. Elizabeth and Mary Stuart. Most of the seri- 
ous troubles of the reign of Elizabeth arose from the 
relationship of the Queen of Scots to the English royal 
line. If the marriage of Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII. 
was not lawful, as Roman Catholics believed it was • not, 
and if, therefore, Elizabeth was not lawfully one of her 



310 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1559-1560 



father's heirs, then the English crown should have gone, 
by right of inheritance, to the Scottish queen, whose 

grandmother was the 
^0:- ^ >^_ elder daughter of 

Henry VII. Had Mary 
Stuart not married in 
France, it can hardly 
be doubted that the 
Catholics, controlling 
the English govern- 
ment when Mary Tu- 
dor died, would have 
brought her to the 
throne. But patriotic 
Catholics preferred a 
Protestant sovereign, 
even doubting her 
legitimacy, to a Catho- 
lic queen wedded to a 
French king, and likely 
to unite the French and English crowns on one head. 

So long as the French character clung to Mary, her 
pretensions were not dangerous ; but, in 1560, Francis II., 
her husband, died, after a brief reign of eighteen months, 
and she returned to her own country in the following 
year. Then, as Queen of Scots, and no longer of France, 
she became the desire of English Catholics, and Catho- 
Queenof ncs were supposed at that time to be the ma- 
scots, jority of English people. Political reasons, too, 
were all in favor of a union of the English and Scottish 
crowns. Personally, Mary possessed charms which Eliz- 
abeth lacked. Her courage was equal ; her intelligence 
was probably superior ; in decision she was the stronger 
of the two. But Elizabeth had a perfect command of 




MARY STUART. 



I557-I559] THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 311 

her passions, while Mary had none, and that was the 
winning quality by which the former triumphed in the 
duel between the two. 

165. The Reformation in Scotland. The movement 
which overturned the old church in Scotland was a move- 
ment of the people, in opposition to the government, 
from beginning to end. The Scottish church was ex- 
ceptionally wealthy and corrupt. It had no hold on the 
veneration of the people, and the ideas of the Reforma- 
tion, set forth by zealous preachers, were rapidly spread 
abroad. Then a meaner influence came to their aid. 
Scottish nobles caught a hint from the examples set in 
England and Germany, and hungered for a confiscation 
of the property of the church, which was said to cover 
half the kingdom. It is plain that this motive enlisted 
some, though not all, in a powerful combination 

r , T . r , „ • ,1 1 Lords of 

of the "Lords 01 the Congregation, as they theCon- 
were called, which took form near the close of 
the year 1557, under a covenant (the "First Covenant" 
of the Scottish Reformation) to "maintain, nourish, and 
defend the whole congregation of Christ." The leader 
of the movement was John Knox, a preacher of intense 
earnestness and commanding powers, who had returned 
lately from a long exile, in England at first and then in 
Geneva, which had been the refuge of many ministers of 
the reform. 

Under the regency of Mary of Guise, mother of the 
absent young queen, French influence had directed the 
government more than even Scottish friendship for 
France could willingly bear, and national jealousies had 
begun to arise. A political feeling was thus brought to 
the support of the Lords of the Congregation, when, in 
1559, freshly roused by the cruel burning of an aged 
preacher at St. Andrews, they rose in open revolt ; but 



312 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1559-1561 

the whole temper of the rising was directed against the 

obnoxious church. Beginning at Perth, incited by Knox 

and other preachers, a storm of destructive rage 

The rising r ° 

against the broke out and swept the land. Monasteries 

church. i,i n • t • • n t • 

and abbeys were laid in rums, and the images 
and pictures of saints in the churches were ruthlessly 
destroyed. Protestant congregations were formed, which 
took possession of the parish churches, stopped the Mass, 
and established worship according to their own forms. 
The religious revolution was an accomplished fact, we 
may say, from that year ; for, though the reformers had 
still a struggle before them, their work was never un- 
done. 

With help from France, the regent was able to check 
the revolt, and its leaders cried to England for aid. But 
any rebellion of subjects against their sovereign was 
hateful to Elizabeth, and she gave slight and grudging 
support to the insurgent Scottish lords. They held their 
ground, however, and Queen Elizabeth was arranging 
Death of terms of peace for them with the regent, when 
the regent, the latter died, in June, 1 560. In August, the 
Scottish Estates met and renounced the authority of the 
pope, prohibited the Mass, and adopted the Genevan 
or Calvinistic confession of faith. Four months later, 
Francis II. (the husband of Mary Stuart) was dead, the 
Guises had been driven from power in France, and Mary, 
stripped of French support, was preparing to return to 
her own land. 

166. Mary Stuart in Scotland. Mary Stuart re- 
turned to Scotland in August, 1 56 1 , being then in her 
nineteenth year. Her beauty and her winning ways were 
The Eari of not eas Y to resist, and she won devoted ad- 
Murray. m i re rs and friends. She listened to the advice 
of her half-brother, James Stuart, Earl of Murray, who 




HISTORICAL MAP OF SCOTLAND. 



314 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1561-1565 

was the leader of the Protestant lords, and attempted 
no rash interference with the religious changes that had 
been made. 

Towards Elizabeth, Mary acted a conciliatory part, 
dropping the title of Queen of England, which she had 
assumed in France, but steadily urging her claim to be 
acknowledged as the next heir to the English crown. 
Prudence may have forbidden that acknowledgment on 
Elizabeth's side ; but the refusal of it deepened feeling 
in Mary's favor, among English Catholics, as well as 
among her subjects at home. With Mary, as with Eliza- 
beth, the question of marriage became a subject of much 
negotiation and debate. Elizabeth, fearing a Catholic 
Thesucces- alliance that would make the Queen of Scots 
810n " more dangerous to herself, brought forward 

Leicester, her own favorite, as a candidate for Mary's 
hand, and promised the English succession to her if she 
made that choice ; but the Scottish queen knew that no 
marriage could give more offence to her English Catho- 
lic friends. Their wishes pointed to a cousin of Mary 
Lord Stuart, Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of Len- 

Damiey. nox> w }-, h a d been born and bred in England, 
under Catholic influences, and was looked upon as an 
English Catholic lord. 

167. Mary's Marriage to Darnley, and his Murder. 
In the end, it was to Darnley that Mary gave her hand 
(July, 1565). Certain of the Lords of the Congregation, 
with Murray at their head, rose in revolt, looking to Eng- 
land for help, which Elizabeth had led them to expect. 
They found themselves deserted, as happened very often 
to those who trusted the English queen. Elizabeth had 
blustered before the marriage ; after it she hesitated ; 
while Mary, acting with vigorous decision, drove the re- 
bellious lords across the English line. 



1565-1567] THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 315 

But while she thus defended her choice of a husband, 
Mary was sickening of it in her heart. Darnley's hand- 
some person disguised a most offensive foolishness and 
coarseness of mind. Worse than quarrels oc- Darnley's 
curred, for the husband was daily provoking cliaracter - 
the wife's contempt, and the contempt soon turned to 
hate. In June, 1566, the queen gave 'birth to a son, and 
her friends in England as well as her subjects in Scot- 
land were greatly rejoiced. Her position in both coun- 
tries was never so strong as at that hour ; but her ruin 
was near. 

Among those who had always stood by her, the boldest 
and most reckless was James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. 
Mary lost her heart to the bold adventurer, and 

• 1 • 1 • 1 o, 1 1 Bothwell. 

with it lost conscience and sense. She had a 
husband, he had a wife ; they planned to rid themselves 
of both. Bothwell obtained release from his wife by 
divorce ; Mary sought the same escape from Darnley, 
but found no hope. Whether she consented to worse 
measures, or was ignorant of them, is a question still dis- 
puted, but the evidence against her is strong. Darnley 
was killed under circumstances in which she acted a sus- 
picious part. What seemed to be proof of her complicity 
in the murder came subsequently to light, in a bundle of 
letters, apparently her own letters to Bothwell, which 
he had kept in self-defence. Those who doubt Mary's 
guilt dispute the genuineness of these " Casket The Caske t 
Letters," as they are known ; but many impar- Letters - 
tial historians are convinced that the letters were written 
by the Queen of Scots, and that her guilt is beyond 
doubt. [yS 

168. Mary's Marriage to Bothwell, and her Deposi- 
tion. Suspicion of Mary's connivance in the murder of 
her husband was made certainty in the public mind by 



316 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1567-1568 

her marriage to Bothwell within less than three months. 
There was a pretence of force being used by the daring 
lover ; but her willingness in the whole proceeding seems 
plain. Then the allegiance of the Scots to their queen 
was cast off ; the affection of English Catholics and the 
sympathy of all Catholic Europe were chilled. After 
a vain attempt to rally support, Bothwell and Mary bade 
farewell to each other at Carberry Hill (June, 1567), he 
escaping to Denmark and she surrendering to the con- 
federated lords, who protected her with difficulty from 
the rage of the people, and who nearly decided on their 
own part to put her to death. Pending the 

Mary in , . * ° 

Lochieven determination of her fate, they imprisoned her 

Castle. . J r 

in Lochieven Castle, forced her to sign an abdi- 
cation, crowned her infant son, James VI., and chose the 
Earl of Murray to govern as regent in his name. 

At this critical moment in M,ary Stuart's career, a 
strange champion came to her defence : no other, in fact, 
than her great rival, the English queen, who resented 
furiously the attempt by subjects " to call their sovereign 
to account." Her interference probably saved Mary's 

life at the time. It revived a faction in the 

Mary flees . 

to Eliza- dethroned queen s favor, by the help of which 
she escaped from Lochieven and put herself 
at the head of a considerable force ; but a single battle 
at Langside (May, 1568), near Glasgow, scattered her 
army, and Mary then fled to England, throwing herself 
upon the hospitality of the rival who had taken up her 
cause. 

169. The Queen of Scots in England. Nothing could 
have embarrassed Queen Elizabeth more, or driven her 
to a worse showing of the hesitating duplicity of her char- 
acter, than this action of the Queen of Scots. Refusing 
to recognize the Scottish regency or the infant King 



156S-1570] THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 317 

James, and professing to maintain the queenship of Mary 
Stuart unimpaired, she kept her in England, neverthe- 
less, neither avowedly as a prisoner nor hospitably as a 
guest, for nineteen years. There was no surer way to 
excite the interest of the world and its sympathy for her 
rival ; no surer way to breed plots and intrigues in her 
behalf ; and they followed, of course. In Scotland, they 
cost Murray his life. He was shot by an assassin, in 
1570, as he rode through the street. 

170. English Plots and Insurrections. The first Eng- 
lish conspiracy, in 1569, was in support of a plan for the 
marriage of Mary Stuart to the Duke of Norfolk, the 
highest of the English nobles in rank. It came to an 
outbreak in the northern counties, but was vigorously 
suppressed. Norfolk had taken no open part in it, and 
after a short imprisonment in the Tower he was set free ; 
but a new and larger plot, to marry him to the Queen of 
Scots and to place them unitedly on the English throne, 
was soon on foot, with encouragement from the pope and 
hope of help from Philip of Spain. Elizabeth's vigilant 
ministers found it out, and Norfolk's death on the scaf- 
fold brought the project to an end. 

In the midst of these conspiracies (February, 1570), 
and to give them support, the pope (Pius V.) 
launched a bull of deposition against Elizabeth, of deposi- 
releasing her subjects from allegiance to her as 
queen. It had none of the intended effect. 

171. Foreign Circumstances which protected Eng- 
land. In pursuing the remarkable story of the Queen 
of Scots, we have left events behind us to which we 
must now return. 

The new separation of the church of England from 
Rome, by Elizabeth, would have been a dangerous chal- 
lenge to Catholic Europe, and especially to Philip of 



3i» 



RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [155S-156S 



Spain, if circumstances had not singularly protected the 
English queen. Philip's hands were doubly tied, by his 
jealous fear of France, and by the work of persecution 
and oppression, in Spain and the Netherlands, which 
chiefly occupied his thoughts. To cast Elizabeth down 
would be to raise Mary Stuart in her place, and so to 

establish in Eng- 



land the influence 
of France. How 
could he maintain 
his despotism in 
the Low Coun- 
tries if England 
and France, or 
England alone, 
should block the 
passage by sea, 
through the Chan- 
nel, from Span- 
ish to Dutch and 
Flemish ports ? 
Even before the 
brutalities of his 
lieutenant, the 
Duke of Alva, had 
driven the des- 
perate provinces 
to revolt (1568), 
peace with Eng- 
land was very nearly the greatest need in Philip's de- 
signs, and he was forced to become actually the friend 
and counsellor of Elizabeth as against the Queen of Scots. 
Trouble with France, on the other hand, was prevented 
by the early death of Mary Stuart's husband, Francis II., 




THE NETHERLANDS : SHOWING DUTCH AND 
SPANISH POSSESSIONS. 



I55S-I56S] 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



319 



by the displacement of her relatives, the Guises, from 
power, and by the strife of Catholic and Huguenot par- 
ties, soon breaking (1562) into actual war. Elizabeth had 
no more sympathy with the Huguenots, or with The 
the Protestants of the Netherlands, than with Hu e u enots. 
the reforming Scots. She did give some help to the 
Huguenots, in 1562, but she was bribed to it by their 
surrender to her of the 
port of Havre, which 
she hoped to be able to 
exchange for Calais. It 
was an unsuccessful 
venture, and she soon 
drew back. 

Elizabeth's great min- 
ister, Cecil, afterwards 
Lord Burleigh, wished 
to make England the 
head of a powerful Pro- 
testant league, to with- 
stand Spanish designs. 
The queen would not 

have it so, and her course, which kept England in an 
always uncertain neutral state, is thought by her warm 
admirers to have been due to a clear foresight of the 
prosperity and strength which the country gained during 
a long period of peace. But her conduct seems Elizabeth's 
rather to have been that of an irresolute though neutrallt y- 
courageous mind, wavering between influences that 
moved her dislike, or her vanity, or her temper, on one 
side, and her really good sense on the other. As for 
principle, there is little to be discovered in Queen Eliza- 
beth by those who praise her most. 

172. The Jesuit Mission. The Society of Jesus, an 




SIR WILLIAM CECIL. 



320 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1577-1584 

enemy more formidable than Philip, entered the field 
against Elizabeth at about the middle of her reign. 
Catholic missionaries from an English seminary estab- 
lished at Douay, in northern France, had been working 
secretly in England, and one of them was executed, in 
1577, for bringing into the country a papal bull. This 
roused instead of checking the missionary spirit in the 
Catholic church, and the Jesuits, then young as an order, 
came forward with ardor to join the Seminarists in their 
perilous work. 

Probably some of the missionaries were enlisted in 
plots against the crown, if not against the life, of the 
queen ; while others worked with purely religious aims. 
But the government pursued them all alike, as conspira- 
tors and traitors, and dealt with all who concealed and 
abetted them in the same undiscriminating way. It is 
use of tne disgrace of Elizabeth's reign that torture, 
torture. which had rarely been employed by English 
courts, to wring confession and disclosure from persons 
accused, and which had never been sanctioned by Eng- 
lish law, was systematically used in these prosecutions 
for the first time. 

In Catholic eyes, the whole pursuit of the Jesuits and 
the seminary priests, and of those who gave them hospi- 
tality, was a religious persecution ; while the English 
government claimed to be simply defending itself against 
political attacks. There is evidently truth in both views. 
The prosecution of the missionaries and their Catholic 
friends was undeniably a very cruel persecution, and the 
motives in it were both political and religious, 

Persecu- 

tion of the darkly mixed. Undeniably, too, there was an 

equally dark mixing of religious and political 

purposes on the Catholic side. As to the number of 

Catholics who suffered death in Elizabeth's reign, there 



1584-1586] THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 321 

is no trustworthy account. Statements vary so widely 
as between 35 and 200. Many died in prison ; many 
were impoverished ; many fled. 

173. The Babington Plot and the Execution of Mary- 
Stuart. Treasonable plotting was not lessened, but in- 
creased, by the severe measures of the government ; and 
Philip of Spain, like a venomous spider, was at the centre 
of the great web of intrigue. Assassination was one of 
his political arts, He used it in July, 1584, to rid himself 
of -William the Silent, Prince of Orange, in the Nether- 
lands. He was now ready to have Elizabeth removed in 
like manner, even though Mary Stuart took her place ; 
for war between England and Spain had been practically 
begun. 

Fears for the queen became so lively in England after 
the murder of the Prince of Orange that a great national 
association was formed, pledged to "prosecute to the 
death any pretended successor " in whose favor " any act 
or counsel to the harm of the queen's person " Fears for 
should be attempted. The same declaration the< i ueei1 - 
was embodied soon afterwards in an act of Parliament, 
as a warning and menace to the partisans of the Queen 
of Scots. 

But the conspiracy of assassination was not given up. 
It had gone so far, in the summer of 1586, that men in 
the household of Queen Elizabeth were enlisted to take 
part. At the same time, every move in it was known to 
Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen's vigilant secretary 
of state, whose spies were in the enemy's camp. Wal- 
singham was accused afterwards, in fact, of hav- waising- 
ing connived at the plot until Mary Stuart could ham ' 
be caught in its fatal mesh. It is still a question in some 
doubt whether the unhappy Mary was or was not a con- 
senting party to the plan for taking Elizabeth's life. 



322 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1586-1587 

With Walsingham's connivance, letters passed between 
the captive queen and one Babington, the chief actor in 
the conspiracy, and they seem to leave no doubt that 
murderous intentions in the scheme were understood by 
both. But those who think Mary innocent believe that 
Walsingham tampered with what she wrote, in order to 
bring about her death. 

* Elizabeth now yielded, with a reluctance that was 
doubtless sincere, to the demand of her council that 
the Queen of Scots should be tried for complicity in the 
plot. But when the trial had taken place, when the ver- 
dict of guilt had been pronounced, when she had signed 
a death warrant with her own hand, and when Mary, is 
obedience to it, had been brought to the bloc! 

Trial and ° 

execution then Elizabeth showed surprise, grief, and ans:e, 

of Mary. K & . ' & 

at what had been done, raging against her coun- 
cil for having executed the warrant, and sending one of 
her secretaries to a long imprisonment because he had 
delivered it, as she must have intended him to do. 

Mary Stuart was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle, on 
the 8th of February, 1587, displaying remarkable courage 
and dignity at the last. 

174. Conflict with Spain and Beginnings of English 
Sea-power. The execution of Mary Stuart practically 
ended hope among the English Catholics of a succession 
to the crown that would restore their church. Nothing, 
after Mary's death, could be expected to accomplish that, 
except foreign conquest — Spanish conquest — which no 
great number of Catholic Englishmen was ready to ac- 
cept. But abroad, in Catholic Europe, hostility to Eliza- 
beth was lashed to a new rage. Philip of Spain was set 
free to act against her, in his own interest, as a champion 
of the church, commissioned to win the English king- 
dom by conquest for himself. 



1572-1585] 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



323 



Mary's execution cannot be called the cause of war 
between Spain and England, because war had long ex- 
isted as a fact, though never acknowledged to be war. 
That singular state of things is not easily understood at 
the present day. It was something out of the anarchy 
of the Middle Ages that had not yet been overcome. 




QUEEN ELIZABETH CARRIED IN STATE TO HUNSDON HOUSE. 



On land, in western Europe, a civilized order, under law- 
ful authority, was fast taking some settled form ; but the 
ocean was still a barbarous domain, where no Lawless- 
authority ruled, where no law prevailed. War, nessat sea. 
piracy, and sea-voyaging trade were hardly known apart. 
Governments neither gave much protection to their sub- 
jects at sea nor exercised much control over them. If 
traders of one nation, or one town, suffered wrong from 
citizens of another town or country, they commonly took 
redress into their own hands, and made such retaliations 



324 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1572-1585 

as they pleased. If some attacked others without provo- 
cation, there were none to watch their doings. Thus 
hostilities at sea which might be called piracy, or priva- 
teering, or commercial self-defence, according to the 
view, were always going on. 

As religious and political animosities between the Eng- 
lish and the Spaniards grew more bitter, such hostilities 
increased. Both the English and the Dutch disputed 
and resented the Spanish and Portuguese claim to exclu- 
sive rights in the New World and in the East, and they 
had no scruple as to the means by which they broke it 
English down. The English were as active in the work 
hostilities as t j ie Dutch, and their government more than 

toward 

Spain. winked at what they did. It was then that 
English seamanship began to be really trained, and the 
adventurous English spirit to be fully roused. 

As early as 1562, the famous John Hawkins, afterwards 
Sir John, thrust himself into the Spanish slave trade, 
finally' employing a strong fleet, and compelling the 
Spanish commanders of West Indian ports to admit his 
cargoes of negro captives and allow them to be sold. 
From this kind of slave trading to more piratical private 
warfare the step was easy, and it was soon taken by 
such bold adventurers as the redoubtable Francis Drake. 
Francis For more than a dozen years before England 
Drake. an( j Spain were avowedly at war, Drake and 
others attacked Spanish- American settlements, fought 
Spanish warships, plundered Spanish treasure ships, and 
shared the .spoil with English courtiers, and even with 
the English queen. In 1577, Drake set sail on a mem- 
orable voyage, which followed the route of Magellan to 
the Pacific, gathered booty along the whole Peruvian 
coast, and tl>en circled homeward by the Cape of Good 
Hope, having rounded the globe. 



1585-15S7] THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 3 2 5 

175. Aid to the Dutch Provinces. The undeclared 
war between England and Spain may be said to have 
reached an open state in 1585, when Elizabeth was at 
last persuaded to send a few troops to the help of the 
struggling people of the Dutch Netherlands. The south- 
ern or Flemish provinces had been overcome already by 
the power of Spain. The Dutch provinces in the north 
were fighting with the last of their strength. If they 
fell, nothing would stand any longer between England 
and the formidable Spanish king. Yet, even in that ex- 
tremity, Elizabeth haggled with the provinces for months 
over the price they should pay her for a few thousand 
troops, and the security they should give. They offered 
her the sovereignty of their country, which she would 
not accept. In the end, she took Flushing and Brill to 
hold in pawn, and sent the incompetent Leicester, with 
a body of ill-furnished and unpaid men, to trouble the 
Dutch more than to help them, and to make a pitiful 
showing of her parsimony, her arrogant egotism, and 
her inability to let any undertaking be made complete. 
Individual Englishmen gave splendid service to the cause 
of Dutch freedom ; Sir Philip Sidney consecrated it by 
an heroic death ; but the brave Hollanders owed little 
thanks to Elizabeth for the independence they finally 
won. 

176. The Great Armada. Philip II. had long been 
fumbling with plans for the invasion of England, and 
after the execution of Mary Stuart he took them ear- 
nestly in hand. The war then became undisguised. Eng- 
lish pirates became commissioned privateers, and swarmed 
in thickening numbers over the sea. Drake was still 
chief among them, and worried the King of Spain with 
wonderful success. In the spring of 1587, he sailed into 
the harbor of Cadiz, where part of Philip's fleet was being 



326 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1587-1588 

fitted out, and destroyed fifty or sixty ships, doing damage 
which is said to have delayed the intended expedition for 
a year. This he called " singeing the King of Spain's 
beard." 

Philip's preparations were finished in the following 
summer, and a fleet, proudly called " the Invincible 
Armada," being apparently the most formidable that the 
world had yet seen, set sail for the English coast. Then 
the English people showed the stuff of which they were 
made. It was by no energy or efficiency in their govern- 
ment, but by their own roused spirit and practical com- 
petency, that they were ready to repel the mighty attack. 
The whole nation except its queen seems to have risen 
to the demands of the hour. Official preparation for 
defence was hand-tied by the niggardliness of Elizabeth, 
English w ho pinched even the food of the sailors on her 
tioTfor ships ; but citizens and cities, shipowners and 
defence. sailors, fishermen and farmers, Catholics and 
Protestants, vied with each other in eager volunteering. 
Religious differences were forgotten ; it was a united 
nation of Englishmen that rose to face the invasion from 
Spain. The queen contributed brave speeches and an 
intrepid bearing, which had their effect ; but they were 
worth something less than the private vigor and liberal- 
ity that got the country under arms, on shipboard and 
on land. 

On the 29th of July, the lumbering and ill-managed 
Armada was sighted from the English coast, and skirmish- 
ing attacks upon it were begun. Drake, Howard, Haw- 
kins, Frobisher, and most of the great sea-captains of the 
age, were in the lead of the English fleet, with scores of 
volunteers like Sir Walter Raleigh under their command. 
For one full week a running fight was kept up, while 
the Armada slowly made its way to Calais roads. There 



'588] 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



327 




SPANISH ARMADA ATTACKED BY THE ENGLISH FLEET. 



it waited in vain for an expedition from the Netherlands, 
which the Dutch had blocked up ; and there its The great 
doom fell upon it. Gathered in growing num- def eat - 
bers outside, the English sent fireships into the midst of 
the clumsy Spanish fleet, and a fatal panic arose. Cables 
were wildly cut and all command of the drifting ships was 
lost. Some were entangled together, some went ashore, 
some were burned; the greater number were. carried up 
the coast, scattered by the wind and pursued by the Eng- 
lish, to be captured, or to be driven on the sandbanks 
of Holland, or to make a long and desperate flight north- 
ward, around Scotland into the Atlantic, through storm 
after storm, and to strew all the western coasts of the 
British isles with wrecks. " Of 1 34 vessels which sailed 
from Corufia in July, but 53, great and small, made their 
escape to Spain." " Of the 30,000 men who sailed in the 
fleet, it is probable that not more than 10,000 ever saw 
their native land again." 1 

With the destruction of the Armada all real danger to 
England from the enmities which Philip represented was 
1 Motley, Hist, of the United Netherlands, vol. ii. ch. xix. 



328 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1553-1583 

at an end. It was securely a Protestant nation from that 
day, and securely a rising power, destined to play an 
important part in the future of the world. If the roused 
temper of the country had had its way, it would have 
Result for pressed the war with Spain to some sharp con- 
Engiand. c lu S ion ; perhaps to the shattering then and 
there of the Spanish dominion in America, which Drake, 
and Raleigh, and many more were eager to undertake. 
But Elizabeth would not have it so, and the war went on 
in a way that gave little new fruit. 

177. Exploration, and the Beginnings of Coloniza- 
tion. The new sense of strength in the nation that 
followed the defeat of the Armada was everywhere felt. 
There had been some stir of enterprise before, even in 
the reign of Mary, when Willoughby and Chancellor 
attempted to find a northeastern arctic passage, beyond 
Norway, to China, or Cathay, with the result of an open- 
ing of Russian trade, pushed thence by routes overland 
into the heart of the Asiatic world. Later, by almost a 
quarter of a century, Frobisher, in 1576, began the search 
for a northwestern passage to Cathay ; while Drake, at 
the same time, was sailing more successfully the south- 
western route to the same goal, and circumnavigating 
the globe. The year (1578) in which Drake passed the 
Straits of Magellan was the year in which England's 
claim to a share in the possession of the New World was 
first put forth, in a patent issued to Sir Hum- 
Humphrey phrey Gilbert " for the inhabiting and planting 

Gilbert. r . . , . ,, y-,.,, , 

of our own people in America. Gilbert s at- 
tempt, in 1583, under this patent, to found a colony in 
Newfoundland, failed, and he lost his life in the returning 
voyage. His step-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, 
succeeded no better, under a similar patent, the 
next year ; but from that time on there was a steady 



1558-1603]. THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 329 

hardening of the determination to dispute possession of 
America with Spain. 

Colonizing waited a little, but exploration went on, 
and trading enterprises were pushed farther and farther 
afield. A Levant Company, incorporated in 1581, soon 
reached India in its operations, by way of the Persian 
Gulf ; and in 1600 the East India Company, 
which rose afterwards to such greatness and India 
power, was first formed. The Dutch had moved ompany - 
faster than the English, and led them as yet in most 
fields ; but the latter were crowding them hard before 
the close of Elizabeth's reign. 

178. Prosperity and Distress. A great but unequal 
improvement in the condition of the country went on 
throughout the reign. It was due to several causes, but 
especially to the restoration of an honest coinage, which 
was probably the wisest of all the measures that Eliza- 
beth was ever persuaded by her able ministers to under- 
take. Without it, nothing else could have brought pros- 
perity back. In two ways, moreover, there were great 
gains to England from the dreadful sufferings of the 
Flemish Netherlands : large numbers of skilled artisans, 
escaping from Spanish tyranny, came to settle in English 
towns, and a profitable share of the trade which Philip's 
armies drove away from the Netherlands fell into Eng- 
lish hands. For nearly half a century, England was 
sufficiently at peace to gather from all these sources an 
enormous gain. 

But the laboring classes, unhappily, got no fair share 
of the increasing wealth. Wages advanced more slowly 
than prices, as happens always, and the cost of T he wage- 
living was harder for wage-earners to bear. In earners - 
the midst of a prosperous era for the upper and middle 
classes there was much distress in the lower ranks of 



RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [155S-1603 




EDMUND SPENSER. 



life, and the framing of Eng- 
lish poor laws, for the main- 
tenance of charity by public 
taxation, was begun. 

179. The Great Age of 
English Literature. Of the 
marvellous outburst of English 
literary genius that began in 
the later third of Queen Eliza- 
beth's reign, what can be said 
fitly in so limited a book as 
this ? All the world-wakening 
influences that sprang, in the preceding century, from 
the invention of printing and the discovery of America, 
seem to have concentrated their intellectual effects, in 
England, upon the little period of forty years that lie 
between the beginning of Spenser's " Faerie Queene," in 
1589, and the writing of Milton's first great poem, the 
"Hymn on the Nativity," in 1629. Within that brief 
space of time the whole of Shakespeare's work was done, 
the whole of Bacon's, Sidney's, Marlowe's, Beaumont's 
and Fletcher's, Middleton's, 
Webster's, Daniel's ; the writ- 
ings of Raleigh and the splen- 
did prose of Hooker were 
produced ; Chapman, Ben Jon- 
son, and Drayton were yield- 
ing their best ; Hobbes, the 
philosopher, grew to manhood 
and- Oliver Cromwell to middle 
life ; Bunyan, Fuller, Walton, 
Jeremy Taylor, George Her- 
bert, Sir Thomas Browne, 
Herrick, Massinger, Lord 




RICHARD HOOKER. 



i 5 58-1603] 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



331 




WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 



Clarendon, were in child- 
hood or in youth. It was 
a marvellous period, and a 
third of it lies within Eliza- 
beth's reign. 

180. The Rise of the 
Puritans, Presbyterians, 
and Independents. From 
the beginning of Elizabeth's 
reign, a large section of the 
English Protestants had 
been dissatisfied with the 
constitution of the church 
that she established, or 
with the creed and ritual that she dictated to it, or with 
both. They had been silenced by measures almost as 
harsh as the measures which suppressed Catholic dis- 
content ; but their numbers grew. For the most part, 
at the beginning, the objection of dissenting Protestants 
was to the ceremonies and 
vestments which the queen 
forced them to retain in 
public worship, and to 
which all must conform. 
They contended for more 
simplicity, more " purity," 
as they phrased it, of 
worship, and that phrase 
finally caused the name 
" Puritans "to be given to 
them. 

Along with these Puri- 
tans were others who went 
farther, objecting to the francis bacon. 




332 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1558-1603 

whole government of the English church. A large and 
growing party wished to bring in the Genevan or Pres- 
byterian church system, framed by Calvin, having no 
bishops, but governed by synods and assemblies, in a 
republican mode. Their ideas were extremely hateful, 
of course, to the imperious queen. Still another but 
much smaller party maintained the right of each Chris- 
tian congregation to govern itself, with interference from 
none, even of its own kind. These were called Brownists 
at first, from the name of their leader, but afterwards 
Independents or Separatists. They were persecuted, in 
1592, so savagely, six being put to death, that they 
were supposed to have been suppressed ; but the sect, 
or its distinguishing doctrine, survived, and six- 
Piigrim teen years later (1608) an Independent congre- 
ofNew gation, driven by renewed persecution from 
Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire, to Holland, formed 
there the company which migrated, in 1620, to America, 
— the Pilgrim Fathers of New England. 

For the enforcement of despotic measures of church 
government a tribunal, called the Court of High Com- 
mission, was created, which exercised fearful powers 
after 1583, and which became an intolerable instrument 
of oppression, then and in -the following reigns. Puri- 
tanism, Presbyterianism, and Independency were all stim- 
ulated in their growth by the queen's attempts 
High com- to put them down, and the rousing of an inde- 

mission. , . . 

pendent feeling m religious matters woke up 
the political spirit that had been dormant for so long a 
time. The democratic temper in English blood began 
to be stirred once more. In every succeeding House 
of Commons elected under Elizabeth the Puritan party 
showed a growing courage and strength. 

The last Parliament that was held (1601) before Eliza- 



1558-1603] THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 333 

beth died, drew from her an unaccustomed tribute of 
respect for its voice. She had long been oppressing the 
country by grants of "monopoly" to favorite courtiers, 
whom she wished to reward without cost to herself. 
Such a grant allowed the holder to control the sale of 
some article, on which he could, accordingly, extort his 
own price. It was one of the most detestable 

- , . , t. t 1 Monopoly. 

of despotic schemes. Parliament was about to 
pass an act boldly prohibiting such monopolies, when the 
queen sent an amiable message, announcing that the 
grievance should be removed. This seems to have been 
the first positive step taken by the English Parliament 
towards the recovery of its old constitutional place in 
the government. 

181. Ireland. The blind and heartless treatment of 
Ireland was never worse than during Queen Elizabeth's 
reign. She renewed her father's attempt to force the 
church of England on the country, with services in the 
English language, which few outside of the English Pale 
could understand. There was seemingly no thought of 
attempting to recommend the new form of worship by 
persuasion or explanation of any sort. 

In other matters the misgovernment was on the same 
lines, keeping animosities alive, cultivating feuds, provok- 
ing revolts. A succession of formidable rebellions oc- 
curred, led either by the O'Neils of Ulster, whom Henry 
VIII. had made Earls of Tyrone, or by the Norman 
Geraldines of the south, whose chief had become Earl 
of Desmond in the late creation of Irish peers. In 1599, 
the Earl of Essex, who had been the chief favorite of 
the queen since the death of his step-father, Earlof 
Leicester, was sent to Ireland as lord-lieuten- Essex - 
ant, with extraordinary powers. His management of 
affairs was disappointing, and he angered the haughty 



334 RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION. [1601-1603 

queen by returning to England without leave. Seeing 
that her favor was lost and that his enemies were likely 
to cause his ruin, he recklessly undertook to excite an 
armed demonstration in London against them, which 
miserably failed. He was then arrested, tried for trea- 
son, and executed (February, 1601). The queen is said 
to have shown great remorse afterwards on account of 
his death. 

182. Death of Queen Elizabeth. Her life was now 
drawing to a close, and she suffered much at the last in 
body and mind. Her final illness came upon her in the 
spring of 1603, and she died on the 24th of March, in 
the seventieth year of her age and the forty-fifth of her 
reign. On her deathbed, for the first time, she indicated 
her wish that James of Scotland, son of Mary Stuart, 
should be her successor on the throne. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

160. The Accession of Elizabeth. 
Topics. 

1. Public feeling about Elizabeth. 

2. Great issues to be decided. 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 428. 

161. The Character of Elizabeth and her Reign. 
Topics. 

1. The situation and her courage in facing it. 

2. Her character and her love for England. 
Reference. — Green, 369-379. 

162. The New Reformation of the Church. 

Topics. 

1. Appointment of Cecil and Elizabeth's proclamation. 

2. The new Acts of Supremacy and of Uniformity. 

3. Attitude of the clergy and people toward them. 
References. — Bright, ii. 488-494. Acts of Uniformity and 

Supremacy: Gardiner, ii. 429; Bright, ii. 493, 494; Green, 377; 
Traill, iii. 312, 314; Taswell-Langmead, 441, 442. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 335 

Research Questions. — (i.) Why had it become difficult to make 
religious changes ? (Creighton, iii.) (2.) From what three causes 
did Elizabeth fear trouble ? (Bright, ii. 489, 490.) (3.) How was 
she enabled to play them off, one against another? (Guest, 431, 
433> 434-) (4-) What became in time the corner-stone of her for- 
eign policy? (Beesly, 101.) (5.) Trace the changes in the church 
in England from Henry VI I. 's appointment of Cardinal Morton 
to office under him, through Wolsey, Cromwell, Cranmer, and 
Gardiner, down to Elizabeth's time. (Montague, ill, 112.) (6.) 
What was the position of the church as a whole under Elizabeth ? 
(Traill, iii. 308-310.) 

163. The Question of the Queen's Marriage. 
Topics. 

1. The importance of it. 

2. Her treatment of the subject and her suitors. 
Reference. — Beesly's Queen Elizabeth, ch. iv. 

Research Questions. — (i.) What justified Elizabeth in neither 
marrying nor naming a successor ? (Ransome, 115, 116; Green, 
384.) (2.) What novel of Scott shows her attitude toward Leices- 
ter, and the sort of entertainment in which she delighted ? 

164. Elizabeth and Mary Stuart. 
Topics. 

1. Mary's claims and England's objections to her. 

2. Changed feeling toward Mary as Queen of Scotland. 

3. Mary and Elizabeth contrasted. 
References. — Beesly, ch. iv. ; Creighton, 68, 69. 
Research Questions. — (1.) How did Mary's claim contravene 

Henry VIII.'s will? (Gardiner, ii. 435.) (2.) What greater sig- 
nificance has the rivalry between the two queens than claims to 
the throne? (Gardiner, ii. 436.) (3.) What effect did Mary's 
claim have on English foreign relations ? 

165. The Reformation in Scotland. 
Topics. 

1. The Catholic church in Scotland. 

2. The Lords of the Congregation and John Knox. 

3. The uprising against the church. 

4. Appeal to Elizabeth and success of revolt. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 495-498. 



336 THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 

Research Questions. — (i.) Contrast the course of the Reforma- 
tion in Scotland and in England. (Gardiner, ii. 434.) (2.) Why 
were the English people less restive under the change ? (Mon- 
tague, 107.) 

166. Mary Stuart in Scotland. 
Topics. 

1. Mary's attitude toward a, religion ; b, Queen Elizabeth. 

2. Controversy over her marriage. 
Reference. — Creighton, 65-75. 

167. Mary's Marriage to Darnley, and his Murder. 
Topics. 

1. Revolt provoked by her marriage with Darnley and its results. 

2. Birth of Mary's heir. 

3. Infatuation for Bothwell and murder of Darnley. 

4. Proofs of Mary's guilt. 
Reference. — Creighton, 72-78. 

168. Mary's Marriage to Bothwell, and her Deposition. 
Topics. 

1. Effect of the marriage on the people. 

2. Imprisonment in Lochleven castle. 

3. Elizabeth's interference and Mary's arrival in England. 
Reference. — Creighton, 78-82. 

169. The Queen of Scots in England. 
Topic. 

1. Vacillating policy of Elizabeth and its results. 
Reference. — Green, 388, 389. 

170. English Plots and Insurrections. 
Topics. 

1. Two plots for the marriage of Mary and the Duke of Norfolk. 

2. Papal bull of deposition. 
Reference. — Green, 389-392. 

171. Foreign Circumstances which protected England. 
Topics. 

1. Circumstances which kept Philip of Spain friendly. 

2. Conditions in France. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 337 

3. Cecil's design and Elizabeth's course. - Z*>iS-4l rl/-d>~&- 
References. — Beesly, ch. vi. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew : 
Gardiner, ii. 449; Bright, ii. 526-528; Creighton, 1 18-127. 

172. The Jesuit Mission. 
Topics. 

1. Seminary at Douay and its Jesuit allies. 

2. Persecution of the Jesuits by Elizabeth. 

3. Difference of view as to this persecution. 

References. — Beesly, ch. vii. The Jesuits : Gardiner, ii. 453- 
456; Bright, ii. 546-549; Creighton, 159-166; Green, 408-410 ; 
Beesly, ch. vii. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What was the English feeling about 
torture? (Beesly, 143-145; Taswell-Langmead, 453, footnote.) 
(2.) What experience among English sailors might have made 
people acquiesce in its use against Jesuits ? (Gardiner, ii. 447.) 

173. The Babington Plot and the Execution of Mary 

1. Renewed intrigues and association to protect the queen. ^jUmJU^' 

2. Plot to assassinate the queen. . J>L . . r/ 4-W^ 

3. Mary's complicity and execution. - ^ (^<Aa^^Q/^AaM^ 7 aLMtLc 
Reference. — BeeslyT^criV ixl jbJxM^o^ ^yJ i^ KU ^**$*yf 

174. Conflict with Spain and Beginnings of English ' 

Sea-power. 
Topics. 

1. Effect of Mary's execution: a, upon English Catholics; b, 

upon Philip of Spain. j^j 

2. State of war and lawlessness upon the sea. — ' 

3. English and Dutch dispute Spanish and Portuguese clairhs in 

the New World. ~ <^ > ^ 

4. John Hawkins and Francis Drake. 
References. — Green, 411-416; Creighton, 173, 181, 193. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What claim to the English throne 

did Philip put forth on the death of Mary? (Gardiner, ii. 458.) 
(2.) In what way had Elizabeth given him further offense? 
(Creighton, 116.) (3.) What position was Elizabeth forced to 
take toward the Protestants by Philip's attack? (Bright, ii. 519, 



338 THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 

175. Aid to the Dutch Provinces. 

Topics. 

i. Elizabeth grudgingly helps the Dutch. 

2. Individual service to the cause of Dutch freedom. 
References. — Creighton, 167-174; Green, 400. 

176. The Great Armada. 
Topics. 

1. Singeing the King of Spain's beard. 

2. The Invincible Armada and the rise of the English people. 

3. Appearance of the Armada and the fight to Calais roads. 

4. English fireships and the destruction of the Armada. 

5. Continuation of the war. 

References. — Beesly, ch. x. ; Gardiner, ii. 458-464 ; Creighton, 
181-186; Traill, iii. 416-418, 459-462; Guest, 435 ; Green, 418. 

Research Questions. — (i.) What other reason than a religious 
one did Philip have for his attack on England? (Gibbins, 120.) 
(2.) How was the fear of the English that Philip would introduce 
the Inquisition borne out by his preparations? (Creighton, 181, 
182. (3.) What was the attitude toward Elizabeth of the Catho- 
lic leader of the English fleet ? (Gardiner, ii. 460 ; Bright, ii. 
557.) (4.) What does this show as to Catholic feeling in England 
toward Philip? (5.) Compare the Armada and the English fleet. 
(Bright, ii. 560 ; Gardiner, ii. 459, 460.) 

177. Exploration, and the Beginnings of Colonization. 

Topics. 

1. Opening of Russian trade in previous reign. 

2. Frobisher's and Drake's voyages. 

3. Gilbert's and Raleigh's attempts to colonize. 

4. The Levant and the East India companies. 
References. — Traill, iii. 477-508. Commerce : Green, 394, 395 ; 

Gibbins, 94, 95 ; Cunningham and Mc Arthur, 109-120: Creigh- 
ton, 135-137; Traill, iii. 539~542. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What relation is there between the 
crusading spirit and the colonizing spirit? (Creighton, i.) (2.) 
What connection can you trace between the Reformation in 
England and the rise of her commercial greatness and coloniza- 
tion? (3.) Where did Spain and Portugal get their claims to 
America? (Gardiner, ii. 447.) (4.) Why did the Spanish object 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 339 



to the English trading with their colonies ? (5.) Who began the 
slave trade? (Traill, iii. 541.) 

178. Prosperity and Distress. 
Topics. 

1. Sources of prosperity : a, honest coinage ; b, Flemish artisans. 

2. Distress of the lower classes and the poor laws. 
References. — Green, 392-398 ; Bright, ii. 573 ; Cunningham and 

McArthur, 91, 92; Traill, iii. 246-256, 548-558; Taswell-Lang- 
mead, 477-480. Social life : Gardiner, ii. 465-468; Green, 396- 
398 ; Creighton, 200-206 ; Traill, iii. 377-398, 564-578. Agri- 
culture : Gardiner, ii. 464; Bright, ii. 572, 573; Green, 393, 394; 
Gibbins, 108, 109; Rogers, ch. xvi. ; Traill, iii. 351-359, 533-53S. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Why should Flemish refugees come 
to England? (2.) What arts would the Huguenots bring in? (3.) 
If wars in the low countries depressed manufactures there, what 
effect would that have on the English wool trade and woolen 
manufacture? (4.) What connection between inclosures and 
poor laws? (5.) What effect upon the price of food products 
would result from the flocking into the country of refugees? (6.) 
This would encourage what sort of industry ? (7.) What does 
the trade between England and Antwerp largely consist of 
to-day ? 




179. The Great Age of English Literature. 
Topics. 

1. Immediate springs of the intellectual awakening. 

2. Great writers of the period. 

References. — Creighton, 208-226. The drama: Green, 426- 
438; Creighton, 218-226; Guest, 439, 440; Traill, iii. 338-341. 

180. The Rise of the Puritans, Presbyterians, and 

Independents. 
Topics. 

1. Dissenters from the church of England: a, Puritans; b, 

Calvinists; c, Independents. 

2. Court of High Commission and the effect of its, action. . 1 aaaA. 

3. Opposition to monopolies.- -fy/r^k iL^v ^^^^ 
References. — Traill, iii. 424-431; dfcirdinerjpi. 478; Bright, ii. V 

579,580; Green, 405; Creighton, 235; Colby, 159-162; Gib- 
bins, 100-102; Beesly, 223, 224. The Court of High Commis- 



34° THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 

sion : Taswell-Langmead, 459 ; Gardiner, ii. 470 ; Bright, ii. 
569; Green, 470, 471; Creighton, 50, no. Elizabeth and the 
Commons: Gardiner, ii. 444, 445, 468; Green, 401-405; Mon- 
tague, 109-112; Ransome, 1 12-122; Taswell-Langmead, 469- 
486. Church government of the Calvinists : Gardiner, ii. 430, 
431 ; H. Taylor, ii. 168-170. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Puritanism tended to develop what 
traits of character, as shown by the migration to America ? (2.) 
How would this make Puritans valuable in a Parliament? (3.) 
What made the queen incline to favor them in the early part of 
her reign ? (4.) Describe the rise of the High Church party. 
(Bright, ii. 569.) (5.) Where was the Separatist colony in Amer- 
ica planted ? (6.) Show from American colonies the absence of 
the idea of " toleration " from the religious disputes. (7.) Who 
appointed the officials of the Court of High Commission? (8.) 
Against whom did it naturally direct its action, and how did this 
affect public opinion? (Gardiner, ii. 470.) (9.) What invention 
made the suppression of free speech very difficult? (10.) How 
did Elizabeth evade the power of Parliament ? (n.) What events 
of her reign forced her to call a Parliament? (12.) Where did 
Elizabeth get the power to pack a Parliament ? (Montague, 95.) 

181. Ireland. 

Topics. 

1. Result of forcing the English church upon Ireland. 

2. Successive rebellions. 

3. Essex in Ireland and his death. 
Reference. — Green, 442-458. 

182. Death of Queen Elizabeth. 

Topic. 

1. Circumstances of her death and her successor. 
Reference. — Beesly, ch. xii. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Compare England's advance in 

wealth and civilization under the Tudors with any previous 

period of its history. (2.) How largely is this advance due to 

the Tudor rulers? 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 341 




SURVEY OF GENERAL HISTORY. 

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

The Founding of Modem Science. If the period that covers 
about half of the fifteenth century and half of the sixteenth 
is properly described as being that of a Renaissance or new 
birth of mind in western Europe, then the last years of the 
sixteenth century and the whole span of the seventeenth 
may be called the school-time of its youth. Its powers were 
then matured, and its especially modern work, in what we 
call modern Science and modern Philosophy, was fairly be- 
gun. It accepted the new view of God's universe which 
Copernicus had opened up when he showed that man's little 
habitation, the earth, is not the centre of celestial motions, 
but only a satellite of the sun. Then Kepler found the laws 
of the revolutions of the planets ; Galileo brought the tele- 
scope to the help of the astronomer's eye ; and Newton dis- 
covered the one force and the one law that act alike in wheel- 
ing planets and falling stones. Ideas of law and unity in 
nature were substantially formed, and all our present science 
is but a larger building on that foundation of scientific think- 
ing which the seventeenth century laid down. 

The Beginnings of Modem Philosophy. At the same time, 
with the rise of scientific knowledge, there came new ques- 
tionings as to what knowledge is, what certainties it has, by 
what methods it can be best pursued, and how, with what 
faculties, on what materials, the mind is working when it 
thinks and questions, and forms the beliefs which it accepts 
as a knowledge of things. From these philosophical in- 
quiries by Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke in England, by Des- 
cartes and Malebranche in France, and by Leibnitz in 



THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 343 

Germany, modern thought took its spirit and its guidance 
scarcely less than from the search ings of science in the phy- 
sical world. 

The Golden Age of Literature. The ripened powers of 
mind in this remarkable age produced a literature, in the 
three leading nations of the time, that has never, as a whole, 
been equalled since. Taken together, England, France, and 
Spain show nothing in any other age that compares with the 
Poetry, the Drama, the Romance of the century, or little 
more than a century, which takes in Shakespeare, Ben Jon- 
son, Milton, Bunyan, Dryden, Corneille, Racine, Moliere, 
Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon. It is the century 
in which the English and French languages received their 
literary form, stamped on one by a noble version of the Bible 
(the " authorized version " of King James), and on the other 
by the classic prose writings of Pascal and his contempora- 
ries, and by the dictates of "The Academy," which Richelieu 
founded in 1635. It was the "golden age " of letters in the 
greater part of western Europe, though the golden days of 
Italy were far in the past, and those of Germany were still 
to come. 

The Thirty Years' War. We suffer a shock when we turn 
from these intellectual splendors of the seventeenth century 
to look at the social circumstances of the age ; for the scenes 
of war, oppression, and common misery that filled it are 
among the worst that history can show. The conflict of reli- 
gions in Germany gave rise to the most dreadful of the wars. 
Its outbreak was in Bohemia (1618), where the Protestants at- 
tempted to take the crown of their kingdom from the House 
of Austria, and to place it on the head of the Elector Pala- 
tine, a Protestant prince. From that beginning it spread, 
until not only all Germany was at strife, — Protestant princes 
against Catholic princes, — but the whole of western Europe 
was more or less drawn into this barbarous " Thirty Years' 
War." The people at large had little to do with the begin- 
ning or prolongation of the war, and bore little part in it, 



344 GENERAL HISTORY. 

except as victims of the death and misery it caused. For the 
most part, it was carried on by hired armies of ruffians, who 
fed, clothed, and paid themselves by the plunder they gathered 
as they marched. 

The Elector Palatine was driven from his principality, be- 
sides losing the Bohemian crown. He had married the 
daughter of James I. of England, and that foolish king med- 
dled in the quarrel with nothing but mischievous effects. 
Denmark and Holland interfered weakly, with no results. 
But, in 1630, a famous king of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, 
came to the rescue of the broken Protestant cause. For two 
years he was victorious, and then he fell, at Lutzen (1632). 
The war raged on, through sixteen more years, prolonged 
mainly by the instigations and the help of Cardinal Richelieu, 
who then ruled France, and who aimed at future conquests on 
the Rhine. 

When peace was made at last (the Peace of Westphalia, 
1648), Germany was half a desert, more broken and divided 
than ever, and, more than ever, the House of Austria, nomi- 
nally the imperial head of the Germanic states, had become 
an alien power. 

The Rise of Prussia. But another House, destined to push 
the Austrian aside, was just coming to the front. At the 
outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, two branches of the 
Hohenzollern family had been in possession of two princi- 
palities in the north, the electorate of Brandenburg and the 
duchy of Prussia, both of which were Wendish or Slavonic 
lands. In 1618 the younger line died out, and Brandenburg 
and Prussia were then united under the head of the Branden- 
burg branch, whose son and successor appears in German 
history as " The Great Elector," because of the skill with 
which he raised himself and his House in importance during 
and after the Thirty Years' War. 

France wider Richelieu. While Germany in this period 
went to wreck, France was being nationally moulded by 
a powerful hand. Its Huguenot king, Henry of Navarre, 



THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 345 

killed by an assassin in 1610, had left it in a promising state. 
But the son, Louis XIII., who succeeded him, was a child ; 
and the government, for a dozen years, controlled by Italian 
favorites of the queen-mother, Marie de Medici, could hardly 
have been worse. Then the young king, who had no ability 
in himself, came under the influence of an extraordinary 
man, Cardinal Richelieu, who ruled France for eighteen years 
as though the sceptre was his own. He crushed the Hugue- 
nots as a disturbing political party, while he let their religion 
alone ; he bent the necks of the powerful nobles ; he prepared 
the monarchy to become a brilliant and deadly despotism ; 
and so he started France upon a career as pitiful in reality as 
it was splendid in the outward show. He did Europe a great 
service by checking the dangerous growth of power in that 
Austrian and Spanish family-circle of clannish potentates 
which took form in the preceding century ; but he cleared 
the way, in doing so, for a still more threatening power to 
arise. 

France imder Mazarin. Richelieu died in 1642, and Louis 
XIII. in 1643. Once more a child, Louis XIV., became king, 
under the regency of a queen-mother, Anne of Austria, and 
again a struggle of factions occurred. Cardinal Mazarin, who 
took Richelieu's place, was adroit rather than strong, and it 
was only after a series of shameful civil wars, known as the 
wars of the Fronde, that the control of the government came 
into his hands. The frivolous and contemptible spirit of 
these wars, in which no pretence, even, of a public aim or a 
patriotic motive appeared, puts them strikingly in contrast 
with the serious civil conflict in England that had just reached 
its crisis when they began (see chapter XVII). 

Mazarin carried Richelieu's war with Spain to what seemed 
to be a successful close. The Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) 
which ended it gave France important gains ; but it prepared 
a long train of future wars, by arranging for the marriage of 
the young king, Louis XIV., to a daughter of the Spanish 
royal house. Both parties to the marriage renounced, for 



346 GENERAL HISTORY. 

themselves and their descendants, all possible claims to the 
Spanish crown ; but the renunciation meant nothing to Louis 
XIV., as events were to prove. 

France wider Louis XIV. This despotic master of France 
was one of those hateful products of royalty who grow mon- 
strous in self-conceit, and scornful of the moral laws and de- 
cent constraints that bear on common men. He had the talent 
of an actor for playing a pompous kingly part exceedingly 
well ; but he played it at the cost of ruin to France. His 
peculiar piety cost the country almost as much. It resented 
the toleration that his grandfather had guaranteed to Hugue- 
not worship, and he revoked (1685) the wise Edict of Nantes 
(see page 253), thereby driving out of his kingdom not far 
from half a million of the most skilful workers in all its cher- 
ished arts, and breaking down the industries of France. 

Of course such a reign had to be lighted up with the blaz- 
ing glories of war, and Louis XIV. had no scruple as to the 
pretexts on which he attacked his neighbors, when it pleased 
him to set his armies at work. For half a century western 
Europe was torn and tortured by the succession of cruel 
wars which he forced reluctant nations to fight in self-de- 
fence. Thanks to the despotic power he had received from 
Richelieu and Mazarin, he could drain the resources of 
France without any check ; and, for servants, he had the pick 
of an age that was rich in gifted men. There was no single 
power that could resist him in war. One by one they would 
have gone down before him — the Dutch Republic most cer- 
ainly of all — if William of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland 
and afterwards King of England, had not organized leagues 
against him, with a patient courage that yielded to no defeat. 
Before William died, the " grand monarch," as he was styled 
in France, had been compelled by the Treaty of Ryswick 
(1697) to surrender very nearly every conquest he had made. 

The Dutch Netherlands. This Prince of Orange was a great- 
grandson of that heroic William the Silent who led, in its 
beginning, the Dutch revolt against Spain. The United Pro- 



THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 347 

vinces of the northern or Dutch Netherlands had fought the 
Spaniards until 1607, when a truce for twelve years was 
arranged. Meantime the southern provinces, known there- 
after as the Spanish Netherlands, had given up the attempt 
to break their yoke. At the end of the truce, the Spaniards 
renewed their struggle with the Dutch, and it was not until 
1648 that they acknowledged the independence which the 
latter had won practically long before. Shortly afterwards, a 
grandson of William the Silent, who was stadtholder or chief 
magistrate of the United Provinces, attempted to make himself 
king, but died in the midst of his schemes. The office of 
stadtholder was then abolished, and remained so for more 
than twenty years, during which time Holland, the chief pro- 
vince in the Union, controlled the federal government so 
entirely that the federation came to be called by its name. 
John de Witt, Grand Pensionary of Holland, as the chief 
magistrate of that province was entitled, took the stadthold- 
er's place. But, in 1672, a French invasion of Holland 
brought about a revolution, in which De Witt was murdered, 
and William of Orange was raised to the office that his ances- 
tors had filled. 

Throughout this period, the Dutch were outdoing all other 
peoples in industry and trade, and they arrived in the course 
of it at more enlightened conditions of freedom than existed 
elsewhere in the world. 

Other Countries. Spain, meantime, was going to decay, 
under the double despotism of its monarchy and its Inquisi- 
tion, while Italy was suffering the blight of Spanish rule in 
the south and Austrian rule in the north. 

The Turks made their last fight for Hungary, — their last 
advance to Vienna, which they besieged in 1683, and which 
owed its deliverance to John Sobieski, the heroic Pole. Hun- 
gary was wholly and finally wrested from them in 1699, and 
its crown, elective until then, became hereditary in the pos- 
session of the Austrian House. 

Poland was fast sinking to the state of anarchy in which 



348 GENERAL HISTORY. 

its national life, briefly revived by Sobieski, was doomed to 
expire. Russia, growing slowly into form as a barbaric 
empire, came just to the point, when the century closed, of 
receiving from Peter the Great the mechanic arts of civili- 
zation which he travelled abroad, as a common workman, to 
learn. 

In America, the seventeenth century was the period of 
colonial settlement, by English, Dutch, Swedes, and French. 
In the far eastern world many changes occurred that were of 
lasting effect : China came under the rule of the Manchu 
dynasty of emperors, which reigns at the present day ; the 
great Mongol or Mogul empire in Hindostan attained its 
greatest power and extent ; at the same time the famous 
East India Company of English merchants, which was des- 
tined to take the sovereignty of India from the Moguls, 
acquired its footing, and the Portuguese were supplanted in 
the Malay Archipelago by the Dutch. 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. 
1603-1688. 



CHAPTER XV. 

WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY. 

The First Stuart King : James I. of England and VI. 
of Scotland. 1603-1625. 

183. James I. of England and VI. of Scotland. 
Among the possible successors to Elizabeth, James Stu- 
art could be accepted with the least dispute. He was 
the nearest heir to the throne, and the probable advan- 
tage to both countries of a union of the English and 
Scottish crowns could hardly be denied. But, while 
willingly received, he was not a welcome king. Scotch- 
men were foreigners to Englishmen in that day, and 
were much disliked. Towards a king from Scotland the 
English could not possibly have the deferential feeling 
which sovereigns of their own stock had commanded for 
some generations past. No tact nor wisdom could have 
won it for him ; and James had neither wisdom nor tact. 

He was a foolishly conceited man, shrewd in some 
ways, and quite learned for a prince, but confidently per- 
suaded that no others in the world were so knowing as 
himself. He had preposterous notions of "the divinity 
that doth hedge a king," though afflicted with character 
infirmities and oddities of person and manner of James - 
that made them seem doubly absurd.' He was coarse in 



35o 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1603-1604 



speech, uncleanly in his habits, intemperate in drinking, 
and without dignity of any sort. Such a king could not 
fail to finish practically the breaking of that strange spell 
which the autocratic royalty of the Tudors had cast on the 

English mind, but 
which religious op- 
position had begun 
to weaken before he 
came. 

James came to 
his new kingdom 
full of self-sufficient 
feeling, but with 
no understanding of 
the English people 
or their political 
constitution. In 

Scotland, the Pres- 
byterian clergy, 
with their great 
popular influence, 
had interfered with 
his arbitrary exercise of power. In England, as head of 
the church, he expected to be free from such 
of Eng- interference, as he saw that Elizabeth had been. 
He probably went to his southern kingdom with 
nothing more fixed in his mind than the purpose to keep 
Presbyterianism down, and, if that were done, saw no- 
thing to obstruct the prospect of an absolute reign. 

184. The King's Dealing with Puritans and Catho- 
lics. The first question with which King James had to 
deal concerned the treatment that the English Puritans 
were to receive. The question stood open until January, 
1604, when James summoned four Puritans to meet 




JAMES I. OF ENGLAND, VI. OF SCOTLAND. 



1604] 



WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY. 



351 



bishops and others of the opposite party, for a discus- 
sion of the differences between them in his presence, 
at Hampton Court. He seems to have listened with 
fairness to the debate, until one of the Puritan speakers 
unluckily let slip the word "presbyters," whereat the 
king flamed out in abusive wrath. That had settled 
the matter ; the case was closed. " If this be all they 
have to say," cried the angry "head of the church," as 
he left the room, "I shall make them conform them- 
selves, or I will harry them out of the land." " In two 
minutes," remarks the historian of his reign, Professor 
Gardiner, " he had sealed his own fate and the fate of 
England." 1 For when he resolved to harry the Puritans 
out of England, with the help of applauding bishops, who 
declared that " His Majesty spoke by inspiration of the 
Spirit of God," he opened a conflict 
which brought his son to the block, 
which drove his grandson from the 
throne, and which forever ended the 
power of kings in England to "harry " 
anybody out of the land. 

The wishes of the king were car- 
ried out as promptly as possible by 
the bishops, who framed a new and 
stricter code of ecclesiasti- 

, , , . , . Action 

cal law, applying penalties of the 
to everybody who refused 
to declare that neither the Prayer 
Book nor the Thirty-nine Articles of 
the church contained anything con- 
trary to the Word of God. By the enforcement of the 
new code, some 300 clergymen were driven from the 
church. 

1 Gardiner, Hist, of Eng., 1 603-1 642, vol. i. ch. iv. 




ANNE OF DENMARK, 

WIFE OF JAMES I. 

Showing the " wheel far 

thingale " then worn. 



352 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1604 

The Catholics fared no better than the Puritans at the 

hands of the king. Before the death of Elizabeth, when 

he was seeking the good-will of his mother's 

toward the English friends, he had given them reason to 

catholics. expect from him a tolerant rule. For a time, 

in fact, he did stop the enforcement of penalties against 
the Catholics ; but he soon yielded to the clamor which 
this produced, and consented to new laws more severe 
than the old. 

185. The First Encounter of a Stuart King with 
an English Parliament. Before the first Parliament 
that he summoned (March, 1604) came together, James 
had opened a quarrel with the Commons, by attempting 
to empower the Court of Chancery to judge the qualifi- 
cations of its members. The dispute ended in a com- 
promise, as concerned the elections then in question, 
but the substantial victory was on the parliamentary 
side. The jurisdiction of the House of Commons over 
its own elections was never called in question again. 

The upper House was more in agreement with the 
crown than the lower, and Lords and Commons worked 
at cross purposes so persistently that nothing was done. 
James had his heart set on a complete union of his two 
kingdoms in one; but his English subjects were in no 
mood to consider the scheme. The usual and 
and com- needed " subsidies " from the Commons, which 
were grants of a fixed tax on incomes from 
land, were obstinately withheld ; while, on the other 
hand, important measures that the Commons wished to 
pass, including measures to check the proceedings of 
the king and the bishops against the Puritan clergy, 
were smothered in the House of Lords. In July, the 
abortive session was ended by a scolding harangue from 
James, in which he lectured the Commons like an angry 



i6o 4 ] WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY. 353 

schoolmaster talking to unruly boys. On its own side, 
the House of Commons had already prepared a digni- 
fied address to the undignified sovereign, calmly making 
known to him that he had been misinformed as to the 
English constitution and the prerogatives of the English 
crown. 

Conspicuous among the commoners in this Parliament 
was Sir Francis Bacon, who bore an honorable and in- 
fluential part in what was done. If the moral Lord 
energy of that remarkable man had been equal Bacon - 
to his surpassing intellect, he might have become the 
great leader of the people towards a peaceful recovery 
of constitutional rights. He could give, and he did give, 
wise counsel, to both Elizabeth and James, tending to 
tolerance in the church and good government in the 
state ; but, also, he could pliantly lend himself to the 
carrying out of meaner counsels than his own. 

186. Plot against the Government. For the discon- 
tent of the Catholics there was no voice in Parliament ; 
they were excluded from it by the oaths required. Con- 
spiracy under such circumstances was inevitable ; yet 
very few persons appear to have been engaged in the 
plots that occurred. In the first year of the new reign 
there were discoveries of an alleged intrigue with Spain, 
in which Protestants were involved, Sir Walter sir waiter 
Raleigh being one of the accused. Raleigh, Ralei s h - 
the most energetic man of genius in his time, had power- 
ful enemies at court, especially in Robert Cecil, son of 
the late Lord Burleigh, who had established himself in 
favor with King James. Of all men in England, Raleigh 
seemed the least likely to engage in plotting with Spain ; 
but his enemies, who wished to remove him from their 
path, contrived to have him accused, convicted, and sen- 
tenced to death. He was then respited by royal order, 



354 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. 



[1604 



but kept imprisoned in the Tower for fifteen years, until 
the long-suspended sentence of death might be executed 
more infamously at last. 

A more real and darkly conceived plot was formed, in 
1604, when half a dozen desperate men among the Cath- 
olics, who shared their secret with a few others, laid plans 
for blowing up the two Houses of Parliament, at the mo- 
ment of the opening of the session, when the king and 




VAULT BENEATH THE OLD HOUSE OF LORDS. 



the Prince of Wales would be present and the Lords and 
Commons assembled in the same hall. They first hired 
a house adjoining the Parliament building, and presently 
found that a coal cellar, reaching under the very chamber 
of the House of Lords, could be leased, which made their 
task easy. They stored an enormous quantity of gun- 
powder in the cellar, covered it with coal and wood, and 



1604-1606] WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY. 355 

prepared to explode it at the proper hour. The meeting 
of Parliament was postponed from time to time, 

, r , r TheGun- 

until more than a year passed atter the forma- powder 
tion of the plot. Finally the ceremonies of the 
opening were appointed for the 5th of November, 1605, 
and on the eve of that day the conspirators had every- 
thing ready for their terrible deed. But one of their 
number, seeking at the last moment to save a friend, 
sent him a mysterious message, which roused suspicions, 
and caused the vaults of the Parliament building to be 
searched. The powder was discovered, and a single 
actor in the plot, Guy Fawkes by name, was seized on 
the spot. His associates were all taken soon afterwards 
and suffered death with him, or were killed in resisting 
arrest. The anniversary of the plot* so narrowly escaped, 
is still remembered in England, being popularly known 
as " Guy Fawkes's Day." The effect of the great ex- 
citement produced was to expose the Catholics in Eng- 
land to laws much more severe than before. 

187. King James and the English Parliament again. 
The second session of James's first Parliament was mainly 
taken up with the passing of new laws against the Catho- 
lics, concerning which king and Commons were agreed. 
With the beginning of the third session, in November, 
1606, the old conflict was revived. The Commons re- 
fused to open free trade with Scotland, and disputed an 
opinion from the law officers of the crown, that Scotch- 
men born after the accession of King James .. Thepost . 
to the English throne (" post-nati," they were nati " 
called) were entitled in both kingdoms to the privileges 
of the native-born. Their feeling on this latter subject 
was made bitter by the gifts, pensions, offices, and other 
favors which the king lavished on his Scottish friends. 

Another cause of ill-feeling arose from the king's 



356 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1606-1607 

evident desire to be on good terms with Spain. He 
never comprehended the antagonism of political, reli- 
gious, and commercial feeling with which the English 
people regarded that dangerous power. Apparently he 
was flattered by efforts which the Spanish court made 
to cultivate his good-will. Being naturally inclined to 
peace, and looking as coldly as Elizabeth had done on 
the heroic struggle of the Dutch, he was easily induced, 
soon after his accession, to conclude a treaty 

The king's . . 

Spanish with Spain which was much disliked. Fresh 
irritations were continually occurring, and the 
Commons desired a renewal of war, to which the king 
would not consent. The suggestion of a marriage be- 
tween his eldest son and the infanta (royal princess) 
of Spain was being dangled before his eyes, — a piece 
of treacherous flattery that lured him for years. In 
July, 1607, the Parliament was prorogued (its session 
suspended indefinitely), and was not permitted to assem- 
ble again for two years and a half. 

188. Multiplied Offences of the Government. Be- 
fore Parliament met again, many things had been done 
which angered the public mind. The so-called " post- 
nati " of Scotland, whom Parliament had refused to nat- 
uralize in England, were declared to be natural subjects 
of the king in both kingdoms, by a decision obtained 
from the Court of Chancery. By another judgment, pro- 
cured from the Court of Exchequer, a doctrine most 
threatening to the constitution was affirmed ; for it con- 
Royai "im- ceded authority to the king to levy " imposi- 
positions." ti ons " — customs duties — on imports and ex- 
ports, at will, without parliamentary consent. This was 
a deadly blow struck at the most precious of all the Eng- 
lish safeguards of political freedom, going far towards 
nullifying that chief provision of the Great Charter 



i6o6-i6o 7 ] WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY. 357 

which was the longest fought for, and the hardest to 
win (see section 69). If the king could tax the com- 
merce of the country at will, he had gained an independ- 
ence which even the Tudors had claimed but once, in 
Mary's reign. 

A different spirit prevailed in the Court of King's 
Bench, where a majority of the judges, under the lead 
of a great lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, courage- sir Edward 
ously upheld the English common law against Coke ' 
the High Commission clerical court. King James gave 
an angry and violent support to the latter, and Coke and 
his associates were baffled for the time. 

Still another, perhaps the sharpest among all the pro- 
vocations to ill-will that James offered his subjects, was 
that which came from his silly affection for The king's 
worthless favorites, and from the recklessness r^"^' 
with which he enriched them at public expense. Carr - 
One such parasite of royalty, a young Scot, named 
Robert Carr, afterwards made Viscount Rochester and 
Earl of Somerset, was rising to offensive prominence at 
this time. 

189. The Virginia Colony in America. It was in the 
midst of these circumstances at home, that the small 
beginnings of an " English nation planted in America " 
were successfully made, by the colony which landed on 
James River, in the pleasant month of May, 1607, and 
which was saved from the fate of Raleigh's earlier settle- 
ments by the resolute energy of Captain John Smith. 
The king, in 1606, had chartered a great colonizing 
corporation, in two branches, one known as the London 
Company, receiving rights of settlement on the Atlantic 
coast of North America from the mouth of the Potomac 
southward to the region of Cape Eear ; the other, called 
the Plymouth Company, having similar rights from about 



358 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1607 

Long Island to Nova Scotia, at the north. The whole 
section of America, between Spanish settlement in Flor- 
ida and French exploration in the St. Lawrence valley, 
was claimed to be the property of the English crown, 
and this was the beginning of an actual occupation of 
the country, to make the claim good. Both companies 
sent out colonies in 1607, but that of the Plymouth Com- 
pany, landing near the mouth of the Kennebec River, 
had no success. New England was to be planted a little 
later, in a very different way. 

190. The Plantation of Ulster in Ireland. At the 
time when this first English settlement gained its foot- 
ing in America, a notable undertaking of Scotch and 
English colonization in Ireland was begun. In the clos- 
ing years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the subjugation 
of Ireland, so lc t labored at in vain, had been prac- 
tically completed by Lord Mount joy, who succeeded 
Essex in the command, and who made a desert of the 
regions which would not submit. The subjugation was 
followed by measures for breaking up the primitive 
organization of the Irish septs, or clans, by converting 
their chiefs into landlords, having rights of property and 
entitled to definite rents, but deprived of the arbitrary 
power they had exercised from ancient times. It was 
clearly a measure in the .interest of the people at large ; 
but, like everything else done in Ireland, it was carried 
out in an exasperating way. Then the new zeal of King 
James for the English church was aroused to " harry " 
the Catholics and make matters worse. It would be 
strange if no plot of rebellion had been provoked. Eng- 
lish officials in Ireland claimed to have discovered such 
a plot ; but Irish historians contend that it was invented 
for the ruin of the greater chiefs. At all events, the two 
most dangerous Irish lords, O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and 




B Longitude W 



h c 



i6o 7 -i6ii] WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY. 359 

O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, were accused of rebel- 
lious schemes and fled to Spain (1607). Six counties in 
Ulster were then declared to be coruscated, the greater 
part of the native population was removed, and large 
numbers of Scottish and English settlers were brought 
in to take their place. 

191. Dissolution of the First Parliament of King 
James. The extravagance of the king compelled him 
to call Parliament together, in 1609, and ask for the fill- 
ing of his purse ; but he asked in vain. The Commons 
would give no attention to his wants until their com- 
plaints against his government had been plainly set forth 
and a satisfying answer to them made. Fruitless wran- 
gles were prolonged until February, 161 1, when James, 
especially angered by some flings at his obnoxious Scotch 
favorites, dissolved the refractory Parliament and so 
ended its term of life. 

For the arrogance of the attempts which this absurd 
monarch was making to acquire more absolute power 
than even the Tudors had claimed, he must not be held 
responsible alone. He was scarcely more than the tool 
of a new conspiracy against English liberty and law, 
the responsible authors of which were found among the 
clergy of the ruling party in the church. An absolute 
monarchy to uphold a despotic priesthood, in a state- 
controlled church, was the object of their desire. They 
flattered the conceit of the foolish king, and filled him 
with such notions of a " divine right " in his kingship 
as went beyond all former bounds. Thev were 

The real 

assisted by a certain class of lawyers, who prac- conspira- 
tised in the church courts, where the canon or 
civil law, derived from the Roman, prevailed, and where 
the English common law was rather despised. Another 
class, too, the chancery lawyers, who looked slightingly 



360 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1611-1613 

at the common law, in which English rights and liberties 
had their root, gave a shameful encouragement to the 
pretensions of King James ; and Bacon was among 
these. On the other hand, the lawyers of the common 
law courts, venerating the precedents of English history, 
both legal and political, and inspired by Chief Justice 
Coke, became stubborn leaders of resistance to royal and 
ecclesiastical usurpation, throughout the long conflict 
that was now begun. 

192. The Reign of Favorites. After the dissolution 
of 161 1, James avoided the election of a new Parliament 
for three years. All imaginable devices for raising money 
were employed, and the making of public debt went on. 
But there was no economy at court, and no learning of 
Death of wiser ways. The better influences there, on 
Prince nd tne contrary, disappeared in the course of the 
Henry. y ear T 6i2, when Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, and 
Prince Henry, the eldest son of the king, were laid in the 
grave. Salisbury had few sterling principles, but much 
excellent sense ; and Prince Henry had seemed to be far 
superior to the stock from which he sprang. 

After their death, there were none to resist the in- 
fluence of Carr, the worthless favorite, who ruled and 
befooled the silly, tippling king. In 161 3, Carr became 
Earl of Somerset, and was omnipotent at court for three 
ran of years. All bowed before him, and he levied 
somerset, tribute from all who sought office or favors 
from the head of the state. Then came an overwhelm- 
ing; accusation and conviction of crime which ended his 
career. 

A new favorite, of like worthlessness, had already won 
the affections of King James, and was ready to take 
Somerset's place. This was a young Englishman, plain 
George Villiers at first, Duke of Buckingham at last, 



1614] 



WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY 361 



whose handsome person, agreeable manners, easy con- 
science, and small self-respect fully qualified 

, ■ r ■ r mi Rise of 

him to be the chief parasite of a contemptible Bucking- 

court. After Buckingham's rise, no measure 
could be adopted, no man could enter or be advanced in 
public office, except in return for favors, flatteries, or 
payments to him. 

193. The Addled Parliament. In 1614, James was 
persuaded to let certain officious politicians of the day 
manage elections for a 

new Parliament, which 
should be, they assured 
him, so made up as to do 
exactly what he wished, 
without question or com- 
plaint. But the scheme 
of the "undertakers," as 
they were called, leaked 
out, and their men were 
beaten overwhelmingly in 
country and town. The 
House of Commons elect- 
ed was more than ever 
hostile to the king and 
court, and James dissolved 
it, in wrath and disgust, 
after a session of two months, in which no bill was passed. 
It was called the " Addled Parliament," because it had 
brought nothing forth. 

194. Spanish Courtship. For seven years more there 
was no Parliament, and the government went on from 
bad to worse along unconstitutional ways. In his need 
of money, the rich dowry to be expected with a Spanish 
infanta became an object of increased desire to James; 




GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCK- 
INGHAM. 



362 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1614-1617 



and his second son Charles, now heir to the crown, and 
approaching a marriageable age, was put forward as a 
suitor for her hand. The Spaniards again encouraged 
the suit. The impending struggle in Germany and the 
prospect of renewed war with the Dutch gave them 
stronger reasons than ever for wishing to keep England 
on their side. In appearance, James had bound himself 
already to the opposite party in Europe, by giving his 
daughter Elizabeth in marriage to the Elector Palatine, 
a Protestant German prince ; but the prospect of a Span- 
ish alliance turned him squarely around, and filled him 
with visions of an influence at Madrid that should keep 
Europe at peace. That the Spanish court ever intended 

to permit the marriage 
is open to grave doubt ; 
but its cunning diplo- 
macy was able to keep 
James bargaining for 
the prize through some 
years, while his sub- 
jects looked angrily but 
helplessly on. 

195. The Fate of 
Sir "Walter Raleigh. 
The king's eagerness 
for amity with Spain, 
and the opposing eager- 
ness of many English- 
men to reopen war with 
that power, worked 
tragically together to bring a great man to his death. 
Brooding in his long imprisonment over the projects of 
American adventure from which he had been snatched, 
Sir Walter Raleigh persuaded himself that he knew where 




SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



1617-1618] WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY. 363 

to find some of the rich mines of "El Dorado," — that 
mythical land of gold which men dreamed of in those 
days, as being hidden somewhere in the heart of South 
America. At last he was given liberty for the search, 
— not pardoned, but released from the Tower, with his 
old death sentence still in suspense, — and he had to 
pledge his very life that he would do nothing hostile to 
Spain. He was prostrate with fever when his little fleet 
reached the Guiana coast (161 7), and was forced to stay 
behind, while his young son and some of his men went 
up the Orinoco to seek the imagined mines. The Span- 
iards, knowing his plans, were lying in wait. The Eng- 
lish attacked them and were repulsed ; young Raleigh 
fell ; the failure was complete ; and Sir Walter, broken- 
hearted, returned Jiome, to lay his gray head on the 
block, and to pay the vengeful price that Spain demanded 
from King James for the friendship which he truckled 
meanly to win. 

196. The Thirty Years' War. In 161 8, the long-threat- 
ened conflict between Protestant and Catholic Germany 
was opened by a revolution in Bohemia, which placed the 
crown of that kingdom in dispute between the Emperor 
Ferdinand, head of the House of Austria, and the Elec- 
tor Palatine, son-in-law of King James (see page 343). 
The unhappy elector was not only driven from Bohemia, 
but lost his electoral states, and Germany was plunged 
for a whole generation into the most horrible of all Euro- 
pean wars. Meantime, the English people were shamed 
and enraged by the ignoble attitude towards these criti- 
cal events in which they were kept by their king. By a 
prompt and positive policy, in one direction or the other, 
he might have either held back the Elector Frederick 
from his fatal mistakes, or saved him from their worst 
results ; and it is not improbable that he might, by firm 



364 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1618-1621 

action, have brought the whole dreadful war to a close 
at some early stage. As it was, he only meddled in fee- 
ble ways, with a watchful eye for smiles or frowns at 
Madrid. If he allowed English volunteers to go to the 
Palatinate, he also gave authority to raise English regi- 
ments for the service of Spain ; and he refused shelter 
to his own daughter in England through fear of the 
anti-Spanish influence she might have. 

Apparently the one man besides Buckingham who had 
influence with James was Gondomar, the pro- 

Gondomar. 110 • 1 • • 1 t-. \- 1 

foundry able Spanish minister at the English 
court, and he, by vast superiority of mind and will, rarely 
failed to dominate both the favorite and the master whom 
the favorite led. 

197. The Third Parliament of King James. In the 
autumn of 1620, the Elector Frederick's Palatine domin- 
ions were seized, not by Austrian but by Spanish troops, 
and James did then, for a moment, make some show of 
resentment, and indulge in threatening talk. He went 
so far as to summon Parliament again, to ask supplies 
for war, and the greater part of England was wild with 
joy. In the following January, Parliament met, and 
proved to be a remarkable body of strong and earnest 
citizens, largely of the Puritan stamp. They came to- 
gether with an anxious wish to avoid all quarrelling with 
the king, and to act with him heartily in aid of the 
elector and his friends. But James's momentary impulse 
in that direction had already cooled, and he would take 
no decided course. 

In June, Parliament was adjourned ; in November, it 
was summoned again, the king being once more in the 
mood to give help to his daughter and son. But the 
patience of the Commons was worn out. They were no 
longer able to refrain from speaking plainly on the Span- 



1621-1622] WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY. 365 

ish match and the whole Spanish policy of James. Their 
memorial on these subjects drew a letter of astounding 
insolence from Gondomar, the Spanish envoy in 

-11 Gondo- 

England, to the king, whom he haughtily called mar's 
upon to punish the House, because, he dared 
to write, " I have no army here at present to punish 
these people myself." Instead of resenting so unheard-of 
an insult to the nation and himself, King James directed 
all his wrath against the Commons, in abusive and threat- 
ening letters, which wholly denied their claim to free 
speech, and violently reasserted all his own pretensions 
to absolute power in government by divine right. The 
Commons in reply entered a memorable protestation in 
their journal ; whereupon the king came down to the 
House and tore the leaves on which it was written from 
the book. A few days later (January 6, 1622) he dis- 
solved the Parliament, and sent a number of its leading 
members to the Tower. 

198. The Disgrace of Lord Bacon. During the ses- 
sion of this Parliament, it gave attention to a scandalous 
fresh growth of monopolies and patents which Bucking- 
ham and his parasitic crew had started up. Its inves- 
tigations wakened a bitter feeling against Lord Bacon, 
and circumstances came to light which led to the charge 
that, in his high office, as lord chancellor, he had taken 
bribes. He was brought to trial and it was proved, and 
he acknowledged, that he had accepted large gifts from 
people who were parties in suits before him. He could 
plead in defence the lax customs of his day ; but Bacon, 
the great philosophic thinker, was one whose standards, 
in conduct as well as in thought, should have been higher 
than those of common men. The trial of Lord Bacon, 
which drove him from his office in disgrace, was a revival 
of the long-suspended power of parliamentary impeach- 



366 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1620-1621 

ment, and gave one more sign of the resurrection of con- 
stitutional government in the English realm. 

199. The Voyage of the Mayflower and the Found- 
ing of Plymouth Colony. It was in the midst of these 
events in Old England that the settlement of New Eng- 
land in America was begun. The Scrooby congregation 
of Independents which sought shelter at Leyden, in 
Holland, from King James's persecution, in 1608 (see sec- 
tion 180), obtained permission in 1620 from the London 
Company (or London branch of the Virginia Company) 




THE MANOR-HOUSE AT SCROOBY, WILLIAM BREWSTER'S RESIDENCE. 

to make a home for themselves on the part of that com- 
pany's American grant which is now the New Jersey 
coast. In the fall of the same year their memorable 
voyage to America was made, in the little ship May- 
flower, which was driven out of its course, and landed 
them, not where they intended, but in Cape Cod Bay. 
There they had no rights ; but during the next year they 
procured a patent, or grant, from the " Council for New 
England," under which name the Plymouth branch of 
the Virginia Company had been reorganized ; and thus 
the Plymouth Colony of the Pilgrim Fathers was planted 
in a bleak and stony land. 



1623-1625] WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY. 367 

200. Prince Charles at Madrid. The final folly in 
the Spanish marriage business was committed in 1623, 
when Prince Charles went with Buckingham, both dis- 
guised, on a madcap journey to pay court in person to 
the princess at Madrid. It was a fool's errand, from 
which some knowledge was brought back. The Span- 
iards supposed that the prince came to enter the Catho- 
lic church, and to promise the restoration of Catholicism 
in England. They could scarcely be made to understand 
that the latter was impossible, and that the former would 
lose him the English crown. When they did become 
convinced that his visit meant no such thing, their utmost 
ingenuity was employed for six months in trying to get 
rid of the troublesome suitor without a quarrel and con- 
sequent war. But the quarrel was not to be escaped. 
Buckingham and Charles returned home in a rage, to 
lead the outcry for a Spanish war. 

201. The Last Days of the Reign. As an advocate 
of war with Spain, Buckingham won a short-lived popu- 
larity that was immense. A new Parliament was sum- 
moned, to vote supplies, and preparations began ; but 
nothing effectual was done, since all management was in 
Buckingham's incompetent hands. 

On the abandonment of the Spanish match, a wife for 
Charles was sought in France. That, too, would bring 
a Catholic queen into England, which the Protestants 
were unwilling to have done. To quiet their feeling 
against the French marriage, both James and Charles 
gave pledges to Parliament that no promise of favor to 
English Catholics should be made. They soon 

J Proposals 

discovered, however, that the bride from Paris of mar- 
could no more be had without that promise 
than the bride from Madrid ; and thereupon Charles per- 
suaded his father to sign an agreement which violated 



368 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1625 

their pledge. This seems to have been the first exhibi- 
tion by Charles of the falsity in his nature which after- 
wards brought calamity to the country and ruin to him- 
self. 

While arrangements for the French marriage were 
pending, James was stricken with a fever and died on 
Death of the 2 7th of March, 1625, leaving the monarchy 
James. anc j ^ e people in a state of antagonism well 
advanced towards the conflict of war that was soon to 
be reached. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

183. James I. of England and VI. of Scotland. 
Topics. 

1. James's claims to the throne and the feeling against him. 

2. His character and its effect on the people. 

3. His ideas at his succession. 

References. — Bright, ii. 592; Green, 477-482; Colby, 1S1-184; 
Gardiner, P. R., 13-15 ; Montague, 114, 1 15 ; Ransome, 123, 124; 
Guest, 442, 443. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Give and define the phrase which 
shows James's idea of his kingship. (Guest, 444.) (2.) This is 
a revival and extension of what old theory of kingship ? (3.) 
What was there in the membership of the House of Commons 
to make a struggle with such a king inevitable ? (4.) What 
party in the church naturally allied itself with his idea of king- 
ship, and why? 

184. The King's Dealings with Puritans and Catholics. 

Topics. 

1. The discussion at Hampton Court and its results. 

2. The bishops' code and James's treatment of Catholics. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 587-589. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What was the only good that came 
of this conference? (Bright, ii. 587.) (2.) How widely is this 
version of the Bible used to-day? (3.) What edition is supplant- 
ing: it ? 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 369 

185. The First Encounter of a Stuart King with an 

English Parliament. 
Topics. 

1. Dispute about jurisdiction over elections to the Commons. 

2. Friction between the Lords and Commons. 

3. James's dismissal of Parliament and address of the Commons. 

4. Sir Francis Bacon. 
Reference. — Green, 480-482. 

186. Plot against the Government. 
Topics. 

1. Catholic discontent and plots. 

2. Sir Walter Raleigh and the intrigue with Spain. 

3. The gunpowder plot : a, participants ; ^detection; c, results. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 589-592. 

187. King James and the English Parliament again. 

Topics. 

1. Agreement over anti-Catholic laws. 

2. Disagreement over : a, post-nati ; />, Spanish friendship. 

3. Session of Parliament indefinitely suspended. 
Reference. — Green, 483-485. 

188. Multiplied Offences of the Government. 

Topics. 

1 . Decisions of the Court of Chancery and the Court of Exchequer. 

2. Attitude of the Court of King's Bench. 

3. The king's favorites. 

Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 483, 484, 4S6-4S8. 

189. The Virginia Colony in America. 

Topics. 

1. James River colony. 

2. The London and Plymouth companies. 

3. First failure of the Plymouth Company. 
Reference. — Colby, 1 71-174. 

190. The Plantation of Ulster in Ireland. 

Topics. 

1. Subjugation under Mountjoy and Irish chiefs made landlords. 

2. Accusation of Irish lords and confiscations in Ulster. 
Reference. — Green, 452-459. 



370 WANING REVERENCE FOR ROYALTY. 

191. Dissolution of the First Parliament by King 

James. 
Topics. 

i. The king's demand for money. 

2. Complaints of Parliament and its dissolution by James. 

3. The king's supporters in his despotic course. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 592-595. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Who calls Parliament and dismisses 
it? (2.) What does it mean to prorogue Parliament? (3.) To 
dissolve it? (4.) To adjourn it ? (5.) How early was regularity 
in its meetings established? (Taswell-Langmead, 268; also 
Ency. Brit.) (6.) How frequently does it meet at the present 
time? 

192. The Reign of Favorites. 
Topics. 

1. Devices of the king to raise money. 

2. Deaths of Cecil and Prince Henry. 

3. Reigns of Somerset and the Duke of Buckingham. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 592-599. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Describe James's court. (Green, 
487.) (2.) How did James create new peers ? (3.) What king of 
the Norman family sold offices in this way? (4.) What excuse 
did he have? 

193. The Addled Parliament. 
Topics. 

1. The scheme of the undertakers. 

2. Reason for the nickname " addled." 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 599, 600. 

194. Spanish Courtship. 
Topics. 

1. Government without Parliament. 

2. Influence of Spanish marriage upon James's policy. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 604-606. 

195. The Fate of Sir Walter Raleigh. 
Topics. 

1. Raleigh's release and search for " El Dorado." 

2. His failure and death. 
Reference. — Green, 488, 489. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 37 1 

196. The Thirty Years' War. 
Topics. 

i. Revolution in Bohemia and beginning of Thirty Years' War. 

2. The king's policy and England's disgust. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 601-603. 

197. The Third Parliament of King James. 

Topics. 

1. Reason for summoning Parliament and its desires. 

2. Trifling of the king and Gondomar's insolence. 

3. Parliament dissolved and members imprisoned. 
References. — Green, 489-493. Growth of parliamentary power 

in the reign of James I.: Gardiner, ii. 500; Bright, ii. 588, 603, 
604; Ransome, 126-137; Montague, 115, 116; H. Taylor, ii. 
210-252; Taswell-Langmead, 492-496, 529-531. 

198. The Disgrace of Lord Bacon. 
Topics. 

1. Corruption of the king's supporters. 

2. Accusation of Bacon, his defence, and disgrace. 

3. Revival of the power of impeachment. 
Reference. — Green, 490, 491. 

199. The Voyage of the Mayflower and the Founding 

of Plymouth Colony. 
Topics. 

1. Scrooby congregation of Independents. 

2. Their settlement at Plymouth. 
References. — Colby, 1S4-188; Green, 505-509. 

200. Prince Charles at Madrid. 
Topic. 

1. Charles and Buckingham visit Spain and return in anger. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 604, 605. 

201. The Last Days of the Reign. 

Topics. 

1. Popularity of Buckingham and the French marriage. 

2. Pledges of Charles and his father, and Charles's duplicity. 

3. The king's death. 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 498-501. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE QUARREL BETWEEN KING AND PEOPLE. 

The Second Stuart King: Charles I. 1625-1642. 

202. Charles I. Charles was in his twenty-fifth year 
when he came to the throne. Unlike his father, he was 

agreeable in person and 
manner, and could bear 
himself with the dig- 
nity that befits a king. 
In blamelessness of 
private life, in many 
refinements of feeling 
and taste, he offered an 
example to be admired. 
He could be chaste, he 
could be temperate, he 
could be courteous ; but 
he could not be up- 
right ; he could not be 
straightforward in what 
he said and did ; he 
could neither deal hon- 
orably with opponents nor be faithful to friends. 

This weakness of integrity was balanced in Charles by 
no intellectual strength. He was narrow in his views, 
arrogant in his temper, impatient of facts. He had 
learned from his father to look on royalty as something 
divine, and on the constitutional rights of the people as 




CHARLES I. 



1625] THE QUARREL. 373 

mere gracious gifts from their kings. With such ideas 
and such a character, he was about to undertake the 
government of a nation that had wakened to the study of 
its own past and was discovering that the recent preten- 
sions of its sovereigns had no historic ground. 

203. Bad Faith in the Beginnings of the Reign. On 
the i st of May, Charles was married to Henrietta Maria 
of France. He had accomplished his marriage by break- 
ing faith with the English Parliament, to satisfy the 
French court ; having accomplished it, he broke the 
pledges given in France, in order to escape trouble at 
home. In both actions his evil counsellor was Bucking- 
ham, whose influence over Charles was even greater 
than it had been over James ; but the dishonesty was 
characteristic of both. They had promised to suspend 
the laws against Catholics in England, and they dared 
not attempt to make the promise good. 

204. The First Parliament of King Charles. Both 
Charles and Buckingham were full of great warlike 
designs, and had rushed into undertakings that depended 
on Parliament for means to carry them through. Yet, 
when Parliament met in June (1625), the king would sub- 
mit to it no plain statement of his plans, but demanded 
in vague terms an extraordinary supply, for purposes of 
war, to be voted on trust. The Commons felt no trust 
in the king or his minister, and required to know more 
before voting supplies. 

For two hundred years it had been the practice, at the 
beginning of each king's reign, to grant him " tonnage 
and poundage " (customs revenue) for life. But, since 
the late king had assumed authority to impose and in- 
crease duties at will, the Commons now declined to make 
the grant for more than a single year. Charles haughtily 
resented the proceeding, and Parliament was dissolved, 



374 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1625-1626 

while the tonnage and poundage bill waited action in the 
House of Lords ; but duties were levied as though it had 
passed. 

205. The Cadiz Expedition. Buckingham and the 
king soon gave an exhibit of the corruption and incom- 
petency with which the public business was being done. 
They sent out an expedition in October, with no plan of 
action, apparently, but expecting to capture somewhere 
a Spanish treasure fleet, with silver enough to put them 
at their ease. It was wretchedly manned, rottenly 
equipped, and there was no capability in the command. 
It failed miserably in an attempt against Cadiz, and its 
ships straggled home with neither honor nor spoils. 

206. The Second Parliament of King Charles. To 
everybody but Charles and his favorite, the disgraceful 
mismanagement of the Cadiz expedition justified more 
than the distrust which the Commons had expressed. 
To the king it signified nothing that needed to be ac- 
counted for or reformed. After failing in attempts to 
raise money by pawning the crown jewels, he called 
another Parliament, and treated it precisely as before. 
The new House of Commons was more hostile to Buck- 
ingham than the old, and it began inquiries which led 
to his impeachment for trial before the Lords ; but the 
king dissolved Parliament and brought the trial to a 
close. 

At this session, three men appeared as leaders of the 
Commons who were destined to act great parts in Eng- 
lish affairs. They were Sir John Eliot, John 
Hampden, Hampden, and John Pym, all of whom had sat 
and Pym. .^ p ar i j ament before, but had taken less promi- 
nence in its work. In the midst of the session King 
Charles had the fblly to arrest Eliot and another member 
for bold speaking ; but that audacious interference with 



1626-1627] 



THE QUARREL. 



37b 



parliamentary freedom of speech produced such excite- 
ment, shared even by the House of Lords, that he 
quailed, and the imprisoned members were released. 

207. Rupture with France. Again the king was with- 
out any lawful provision of means for carrying on the wars 
that he had under- 
taken in Germany 
and against Spain ; 
and yet he was fatu- 
ously provoking a 
quarrel with France. 
The provocation be- 
gan with his breach 
of the agreement he 
had made at the time 
of his marriage, to 
shelter the English 
Catholics from op- 
pressive laws. That 
not only produced 
bad feeling at the 
French court, but 

caused quarrels between Charles and his young wife, 
which he attributed to the influence of the companions 
who came with her from France. After much Q ueen 
unseemly bickering, he expelled her chaplain Hennetta - 
and all her ladies from the country, and thus violated 
still more of the agreements that were made when he 
received her hand. 

These quarrellings only helped, however, to widen the 
breach with France which other witless measures were 
bringing about. Richelieu, the great minister then con- 
trolling the French government, had political aims which 
exactly accorded with English interests and desires. He 




JOHN PYM. 



376 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1627-1628 

wished to check the growth of the Austro-Spanish power, 
and sought to act in cooperation with England, Holland, 
and the other Protestant states ; but Charles 
seemed perversely determined to drive him 
from that friendly course, taking an arrogant and dicta- 
torial attitude on every question that came up. It was 
a natural consequence that France finally (March, 1627) 
entered into an alliance against England with Spain, and 
Charles, with no money and no parliamentary support, 
had doubled the war on his hands. 

208. The Forced Loan. The king's conflicts with 
Parliament had only hardened his despotic resolution, and 
he now undertook the collection of a forced loan, which 
was levied on all tax-paying citizens at a certain fixed 
rate. Those resisting were imprisoned, or dragged from 
their homes to be sent into the army or the fleet. .An 
opinion to support the measure was demanded from the 
judges, and, when they refused it, the chief justice was 
dismissed and a follower of Buckingham was seated in 
his place. These bold undertakings of undisguised des- 
potism had no small success, since the personal suffering 
which each opponent risked was very great ; but increas- 
ing numbers took the risk. Men like Hampden and 
Eliot set examples, and so, too, did Sir Thomas Went- 
worth, who was afterwards to become the chief supporter 
of the king. Though a large sum was actually wrung 
from unwilling lenders, it was far from enough to meet 
the needs of the war ; and, after a great part of the royal 
plate had been sold, Charles yielded to necessity and 
summoned Parliament once more (March, 1628). 

209. La Rochelle and the Isle of Re. Meantime, 
Buckingham had personally undertaken a campaign in 
France, and had failed. He had led an expedition of 
6000 men to the Isle of Re, which lies on the French 



1627-1628] THE QUARREL. 377 

coast, at the entrance to the harbor of the city of La 
Rochelle. The Rochellese were Huguenots, and were 
induced by promises of help to undertake a fresh revolt. 
But the English proved unable even to reduce a strong- 
fort that was held by the French king's troops on the 
isle. After besieging it for more than three months, 
they were driven to their ships with terrible loss. Buck- 
ingham had proved his personal valor, and had shown 
soldierly qualities ; but the disaster was charged against 
him, and increased the detestation in which he was 
held. 

210. King and Parliament again. — The Petition of 
Right. The Parliament which assembled in March found 
Charles still disdainful in his tone, while its own disposi- 
tion had not been sweetened by recent events. It was 
full of a new bitterness, which the forced loan and the 
arbitrary imprisonments had stirred up, and it was sternly 
resolved that the liberty and the property of Englishmen 
should be, in some way, protected against such intoler- 
able abuses of royal power. In the late experience of 
the country, the protection of the courts had failed. A 
situation so perilous to personal freedom put all minor 
questions out of sight, and the Commons would give no 
heed to foreign enemies until they had settled what to 
do in defence of themselves against the tyranny at home. 
Foremost in their discussion of measures was Sir Thomas 
Wentworth, who then made his last appearance on the 
popular side. 

Deliberation in Parliament over the action to be taken 
was careful and long, with scarcely more earnestness in 
the Commons than in the Lords. Buckingham and the 
king had driven a majority of the peers, at last, to strong 
sympathy with the feeling in the lower House. After 
various proposals and changes of plan, the final outcome 



378 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1628 

of the discussion was an instrument known as the " Peti- 
tion of Right," adopted by both houses and sent to the 
king for the assenting answer that would confirm it as 
part of the constitutional law of the realm. Charles, who 
could do nothing in an honest way, gave his 
ness of answer at first in evasive words, only offering 
a vague declaration of his will to do right. 
The feeling which this roused in both houses was star- 
tling even to him, and, when he threatened to silence Par- 
liament by a dissolution, he received a message from the 
House of Lords which warned him to reconsider his 
course. For once he did so, and, being again asked for 
a straightforward answer to the Petition of Right, he 
pronounced the customary words that made it law. 

This famous declaratory instrument, which ranks, 
among the constitutional documents of English history, 
Petition of on ty second in importance to the Great Charter 
Right. itself, was designed to leave no longer an open 
question as to the right of the king to extort gifts, loans, 
benevolences, or taxes from his subjects, without parlia- 
mentary consent, or to commit them arbitrarily to prison, 
or to quarter sailors and soldiers upon them, or to subject 
them to martial law. But by not defining the term " tax " 
it still left room for controversies to arise. 

Almost immediately, the disputing on that point began, 
when the Commons undertook legislation. concerning the 
"tonnage and poundage" tariff, which the 
and pound- judges had decided that the king could regu- 
late at will. By a summary prorogation of Par- 
liament its action was stopped. But it had voted him 
a liberal money grant, which enabled him to fit out a 
new expedition to relieve Rochelle, where the Hugue- 
nots were still expecting English help. 

211. Assassination of Buckingham. If Bucking- 



1628-1629] THE QUARREL, 379 

ham's influence had really been, as was believed, the cause 
of misgovernment, and the prime source of trouble be- 
tween king and people, such trouble might now have 
disappeared ; for Buckingham was assassinated, by one 
Felton, at Portsmouth, in August, 1628, while preparing 
to take command of the new expedition to Rochelle. 
But Buckingham's death only showed that the troubles 
of England came from the character of its king. 

The fleet prepared to relieve Rochelle was sent under 
the Earl of Lindsey, and completely failed. Fallof 
The beleaguered town surrendered, and no Rochelle - 
hope of success appeared in any of the various fields of 
war that had been so rashly entered by Charles. 

212. Resistance to Tonnage and Poundage. The 
interrupted action of Parliament on tonnage and poundage 
had instigated many merchants to resist payment of the 
king's impositions, sometimes by force. Goods were 
seized, men imprisoned, courts appealed to, and a hot 
agitation of the subject was soOn in train. The proro- 
gation of Parliament had been until October, but Charles 
found reasons for postponing the meeting until January 
in the following year (1629). 

213. Laud and his Church Party. An agitation more 
widespread than that concerning tonnage and poundage 
was then heating English feeling throughout the land. 
It came from nothing new, but simply from a growing 
opposition to the doctrines and practices which a minority 
of the clergy, supported by the king, were forcing on the 
church. To a great extent, the issues had become politi- 
cal, and those who could not accept the high notions of 
royal authority that were held by the king and supported 
by the ruling clergy were driven, more and more, into 
the so-called Puritan ranks. 

In the party of the royalist clergy, as they may be 



3 8o 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1628-1629 



called, a leader, 
William Laud, 
had risen, who ac- 
quired as fatal 
an influence over 
Charles in church 
matters as Buck- 
ingham had exer- 
cised in political 
affairs. Laud had 
the priestly dic- 
tatorial spirit, as 
Charles had the 
kingly, and they 
worked in perfec- 
tion together. Al- 
ready, as Bishop 
of London, Laud 
was more po- 
tent in the church than the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
whose seat he was afterwards to fill. He cared little 
for doctrinal opinions, but greatly for the forms, cere- 
Laud's monies, and outward incidents of religion, and 
position. kj s w jjj wag | DCn t upon having a rigid uniform- 
ity in those, while doctrinal controversy should be sup- 
pressed. The defining of the creed of the church in its 
Thirty-nine Articles had not stopped such controversy 
within its own ranks ; for both parties accepted the 
articles, each finding its own theology in them, with 
consequent disputing, which, in Laud's view, ought to be 
stopped. 

Neither party dreamed of liberty for all opinions ; the 
intolerance of the age was common to both. Each 
wished to subjugate the other ; the Calvinistic Puri- 




WILLIAM LAUD. 



1628-1629] THE QUARREL. 38 1 

tans by authority of Parliament,' where their ascendency 
had become complete, and the ritualistic clergy by au- 
thority of the king, the bishops, and the clerical Convo- 
cation of the church. The political conflict was inflamed 
by the religious strife. To suppress controversy, Charles 
was now easily persuaded to issue a Declara- TheDecia- 
tion, commanding that no man thereafter should ratlon - 
print or preach anything that "put his own sense or 
comment " into the meaning of the Articles of the 
church, or anything " other than is already established 
in Convocation with our royal assent." 
► 214. The Commons in Tumult. The Commons, at 
their meeting, in January, 1629, took up the question 
of tonnage and poundage angrily, until the king saw 
fit to assure them that he did not intend to levy duties 
by his "hereditary prerogative," and there seemed to be 
fair promise of an amicable settlement of the dispute. 
But then the religious issue was brought into the House, 
with a rush of bitter feeling that swept even members 
like Sir John Eliot into an unreasonable course. They 
set two objects before themselves, and passionately pur- 
sued both : (1.) To punish the bishops and clergymen 
who were introducing what they looked upon as " popish " 
innovations in church ceremony ; (2.) To put their own 
theological construction on the Articles of the church, 
and to allow no other to be written of or preached. Pro- 
ceedings against the bishops were begun, and drew from 
Oliver Cromwell, a new member, his first brief speech. 
An effort to define the Articles produced nothing but a 
resolution that was too vague for any practical effect. 
But all the promise of a settlement of tonnage and 
poundage was destroyed by the passion of the religious 
debate. 

On the 2d of March, the House received a royal order 



382 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. 



[1629 



scene in 
Parlia- 
ment. 



to adjourn, and it was believed that dissolution would 
follow. Eliot and others determined that, before their 
separation, they would pass resolutions in the nature of 
closing an appeal to public feeling in the country. To 
prevent such action, the speaker attempted 
to leave the chair ; but he was forcibly held 
down by two members, one of whom put the resolutions 
to vote, in the midst of a wild tumult and struggle, and 
they were adopted, just as the king, with an armed force, 
arrived to clear the chamber. That riotous scene was 
the last that England saw of any Parliament for eleven 
years. 

215. Government without Parliament. Charles was 
now to try his final experiment upon the patience of the 

English people, to find 
how long they would en- 
dure to be taxed and ab- 
solutely ruled, without 
even the forms of con- 
sent from themselves. He 
commanded that none 
should petition him to call 
a Parliament again, and 
constitutional counsels 
were thus denied access 
to his ear. He revenged 
himself on Eliot and other 
leaders of the Commons 
by sending them to the 
Tower, evading parlia- 
mentary privilege by charging them with sedition and 
riot. Judges had been made pliant by a few summary 
changes on the bench, and the offending members were 
quite at the mercy of an implacable king. Standing on 




SIR JOHN ELIOT. 



1629-1632] THE QUARREL. 383 

the privilege of Parliament, and refusing to make any 
defence, they were condemned to imprisonment and heavy 
fines, with offers of grace if they would acknow- i mprison . 
ledge their fault. One by one, all yielded except ™ e e a ^ h a ^ d 
Eliot, who calmly refused to make terms with Eliot ' 
tyranny, until he died, after three years and a half of 
merciless confinement, deprived of proper exercise and 
air. The malignity of the king pursued him even after 
death, refusing to give his body to his friends. 

Evidently, after the dissolution of Parliament, there 
was some reaction of sentiment against it, for a time. 
Many who wished to check the king drew back from the 
extreme ground to which the Commons had advanced. 
They feared absolute power in Parliament no less than in 
the crown. Some passed entirely over to the 

i-i a r-- t-i -iTT Sir Thomas 

royal side. Among them was Sir 1 nomas Went- went- 

worth, who had accepted a seat among the 

peers as Viscount Wentworth, and who soon shared with 

Laud the most intimate friendship and confidence of the 

king. 

By reviving many obsolete royal claims to fees and 
fines ; by inventing many new ones ; by creating oppres- 
sive monopolies again ; by cheating creditors and heaping 
up debt ; by breaking engagements abroad, and making 
the nation a byword for weakness and shabby ways, the 
government contrived to exist without lawful parliament- 
ary grants. The Star Chamber court, insti- The king . s 
tuted, or recreated, by Henry VII. (see section *°?}™g for 
121) as a tribunal for curbing the greater nobles, mone y- 
and Queen Elizabeth's church Court of High Commis- 
sion (see section 180), now became more formidable in- 
struments of despotism than ever before, being used for 
the king's profit, as well as for the gratifying of his impe- 
rious will. 



384 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1628-1640 

In 1633, the archbishopric of Canterbury became va- 
cant, and the primacy in the church was given, as long 
intended, to Laud. From that day there was no peace 
in England for those who resisted Laud's beliefs, as to 
the place of a communion table in a church, or as to vest- 
ments or postures in worship ; or as to Sunday amuse- 
Laud'sop- nients, or as to the morality of the stage, or as 
pressions. t0 opinions proper to be put into books. So 
sleepless an energy of censorship in religion had never 
been known before. When, in 1634, one Prynne had his 
ears cut off for writing a " Scourge of Stageplayers," 
there was little public feeling shown; but when, three 
years later, the same obstinate Prynne was sentenced in 
Star Chamber to a second cutting of his ears, for writing 
of Sabbath breaking in offensive terms, and when he 
suffered with two other like offenders, all three going- 
then to imprisonment for life, the London crowd strewed 
flowers in their path. But no warning was taken by 
Charles or Laud. 

216. The Puritan Emigration to New England. So 
disturbing and discouraging to the Puritans was the state 
of the country at this period that a great movement 
among them of emigration to New England was set on 
foot. A small settlement, headed by John Endicott, was 
planted at the site of the present city of Salem, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1628. In 1629, a royal charter was procured 
by a corporation entitled " The Governor and Company 
of Massachusetts Bay," in possession of which a large 
colony, with John Winthrop for its governor, crossed the 
* Atlantic in the following year and established homes 
where Boston and the neighboring towns have risen since. 
Others followed to the same region, from which they 
spread into the Connecticut Valley and to Narragansett 
Bay, until New England is believed to have had in 1640 



1633-1634] THE QUARREL. 385 

a population of 20,000 souls. The charter of the Com- 
pany of Massachusetts Bay gave power to its governor 
and council for any legislation not in conflict with Eng- 
lish laws ; and so the colony entered upon a remarkably 
independent career, which it was able to pursue for many 
years. 

217. Wentworth in Ireland. In the same year in 
which Laud became primate, Wentworth obtained a field 
for the exercise of his great administrative powers, by 
appointment to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland. He 
governed the troubled island for six years, with an un- 
doubtedly honest purpose to better the condition of its 
people, and with undoubted success in many respects. 
He established its linen industry, improved its agriculture, 
increased its commerce, and left it more generally pros- 
perous than when he came. It was an intelligent despot- 
ism that he introduced, but it was a despotism more 
absolute than even Ireland had experienced before. It 
was what he and Laud, in their intimate correspondence, 
called "Thorough," stopping at nothing short of the full 
attainment of the objects which their own judgment de- 
termined to be good. 

218. Ship-money, and Hampden's Refusal to pay it. 
Peace had been made with France in 1629, and with 
Spain in the following year ; but Charles, notwithstand- 
ing his troubles at home and his want of means, could not 
refrain from incessant attempts to play a part in European 
affairs, for which he needed especially some show of 
naval strength. His attorney-general, a learned lawyer, 
named Noy, recalled to mind that English kings in early 
times had required coast towns and maritime counties 
to furnish needed ships in time of war, and that Queen 
Elizabeth did the same when the Armada was fought. 
Those precedents were held to have established a royal 



386 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1634-1637 

right, which Charles exercised at once (1634), though no 
war could be shown to exist. 

There was a fatal success in the device, and it led the 
mischievous inventiveness of the king's bad counsellors 
to further steps. They argued that if seaport towns might 
be called upon for ships, then inland towns, with equal 
reason, might be called upon for money with which to 
build and maintain ships. Charles thought the reasoning 
excellent, and, in 1635, a demand for "ship-money" was 
made on the whole kingdom, as a general tax. Legal 
resistance seemed hopeless, because the judges had de- 
cided for the king in advance, and none was 
effectively made. But next year, when the de- 
mand came again, John Hampden determined to spend 
his whole estate, if need be, in forcing the question to a 
full and open trial, rather than pay the twenty shillings 
for which he was assessed. Six months were occupied 
in the trial of his case, all England listening and learn- 
ing what the issue involved. The king won his twenty 
shillings from John Hampden, of course, but the last veil 
of disguise upon the despotism he was setting up disap- 
peared in the argument which sustained his claim, and 
its nakedness was laid bare. 

219. Laudism in Scotland. — The Bishops' Wars. 
But, after all, it was the Scots and not the English who 
first brought the arrogant career of King Charles to a 
halt. Pricked on by Laud, he determined to force the 
use of a prayer book on the Scots, and to strengthen 
the feeble episcopacy which his father had succeeded in 
setting over their church. His plains were laid in 1633, 
but it was not until 1637 that the prayer book, as ap- 
proved by Laud, was ready to be sent to Scotland, with 
the king's commandment for its universal use. Then 
the blood of the Scottish nation boiled up in wrath. At 



I637-I638J 



THE QUARREL. 



\S7 



the first reading of the book in the great Edinburgh 
church of St. Giles a riot occurred, and when Ri 0tat st. 
Charles gave sharp orders for the punishment Glles ' s - 
of the rioters, he found that practically the whole nation 
was at their back. 

Men of every class swarmed into the capital, and or- 
ganized measures to resist the attack on their church. 
Four committees, called The Tables, representing nobles, 




ST. GILES'S CHURCH, EDINBURGH. 

gentry, ministers, and burghers, were appointed to act for 
the whole, and these, sitting together at Edinburgh, be- 
came a kind of improvised Parliament, holding vastly more 
power than those who acted for the king. Scottish feel- 
ing grew more stern. Early in 1638, the people set forth 
their cause and bound themselves together in it by a 



388 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1638-1640 

National Covenant, the signing of which began in the 
Greyfriars' churchyard at Edinburgh and was 
tionai continued in every part of the land. The king 

threatened to prepare for war, but thought bet- 
ter of it, and in September he offered to revoke the 
prayer book, as well as to limit the bishops' powers. It 
was too late. He had authorized, at the same time, a 
General Assembly of the church to be held at Glasgow, 
and that body, when it met in November, took matters 
into its own hands, defiant of the king. It deposed the 
bishops, abolished episcopacy, and restored the Presby- 
terian system in full. 

After that revolutionary action, the king's authority 
could only be recovered by arms, and he undertook pre- 
parations for war ; but when he had mustered his forces 
on the border, near Berwick, the Scots faced him 

The First . 

Bishops' with an army so much better than his own that 

War 

he dared not fight. He made a treaty with 
them (June, 1639), which ended what was called the First 
Bishops' War. 

The treaty provided for another General Assembly, and 
for a meeting of the Scottish Parliament, or Estates. 
In both meetings, when held, the proceedings were more 
defiant of the king than before, and Charles was driven 
to another attempt at the subjugation of his northern 
kingdom by force. This time he was persuaded by his 
councillors to seek help in England from a Parliament 
(April, 1640), hoping that English grievances could be 

put out of mind by rousing feeling against the 
Pariia- Scots. But he was quickly undeceived. The 

Commons showed more readiness to take sides 
with the Scots than with the king, and were hastily dis- 
solved after a fruitless session of twenty-three days. 
With the advice of his evil counsellors, Charles then put 



i6 4 o] THE QUARREL. 389 

forth a second effort to raise an army, by the arbitrary 
impressment of men. Wentworth, who had come over 
from Ireland, and who had been made Earl of Strafford, 
was the animating spirit in what the king now did. But 
nothing could overcome the unwillingness with 
which the royal banners were followed to the Bishops' 

War 

north. The Scottish force boldly crossed the 
Tweed, drove the disorderly royal bands from Newburn 
(August, 1640), and established themselves on English 
soil. The Second Bishops' War was as hopeless a 
failure for the king as the first, and far more serious in 
results. The Scots dictated their own terms of peace : 
would keep their army on foot ; would have it paid by 
the king, at the rate of 250 pounds a day ; would stay 
meantime in northern England until everything had been 
arranged ; and Charles could do nothing but assent. 

220. The Long Parliament. In the desperate situa- 
tion to which he had brought himself, the king still tried 
to evade demands in England for a meeting of Parliament, 
by calling a Great Council of Peers, after the manner 
of the early Norman kings. But the peers would only 
indorse the national demand for a Parliament, and he 
had to yield. The summons went forth, and a Parlia- 
ment, overwhelmingly Puritan and intensely radical in 
mind, came up to Westminster with the fixed resolve 
that no mandate of royalty should disperse its members 
until it had done for England some saving work. It 
assembled November 3, 1640, and on that day the power 
that he had used so arrogantly and so foolishly fell from 
King Charles. 

221. Attainder and Execution of Strafford. Almost 
the first act of this Long Parliament, as it came to be 
called, was to arraign Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, 
on charges of high treason, committed in the giving 



390 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. 



[1640 



of treasonable counsels to the king. Strafford, as the 
ablest, was the most feared of all the royal council ; he 
was hated for what seemed to be apostacy in his course, 
and he was suspected of having planned to bring an 

army from Ireland 
to use against both 
English and Scotch. 
To make conviction 
more sure, the pro- 
ceeding against him 
by impeachment 
was changed to an 
act of attainder, 
which condemned 
without trial and 
was a bad exercise 
of power. Both 
houses passed the 
act, and Strafford's 
fate was then de- 
pendent on the 
honor, the courage, 
and the gratitude of the king. By refusing to approve 
the bill, Charles could at least have kept his own hands 
clean, and possibly he might have made the execution 
of Strafford too unlawful a deed for Parliament to com- 
mit. " Upon the word of a king," he had written to the 
unfortunate man, "you shall not suffer in life, honor, or 
fortune ; " but the word of a king in Charles's mouth 
was a faithless word. The rage of London, crying for 
Strafford's death, was more than he had the manly honor 
to defy, and he signed the act which was the death-war- 
rant of his faithful servant and friend. " Put not your 
trust in princes," said the earl with stately bitterness 




THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD. 



1640-1641] THE QUARREL. 391 

when he heard what the king had done, and he went with 
calm dignity to the block. 

Next to Strafford, Laud was most hated and feared. 
He, too, was accused of high treason, arrested, 
and sent to the Tower, but no immediate prose- 
cution was begun. The habit of loyalty still kept men 
frftm imputing guilt to the king himself. He was as- 
sumed to have been sinned against by wicked councillors 
and ministers, who did wrong things in his name. 

222. Restoring the Constitution. For months, after 
failing in plots to bring an armed force to London, Charles 
was cowed by the fierce resolution that the Commons had 
shown. He gave his assent to bills which required the 
election of a Parliament every three years, whether sum- 
moned by the king or not ; which took away his power 
to dissolve or adjourn Parliament without its own con- 
sent ; which declared ship-money illegal ; which made 
tonnage and poundage dependent on parliamentary con- 
sent ; which abolished the Star Chamber and the Court 
of High Commission, — which stripped the king, in fact, 
of all the tyrannical prerogatives he had claimed, and yet 
did little more than restore the constitution to what 
it was in Lancastrian times, save in the one matter of 
parliamentary dissolution, which contained a revolution 
in itself. 

In all these measures a great majority of the Commons, 
following the lead of Hampden and Pym, were substan- 
tially agreed ; but when they came to deal with questions 
concerning the church a division of parties appeared. 
One extreme party, beginning with proposals for the 
exclusion of bishops from the House of Lords, de- 
manded finally the complete abolition of that office 
in the church, and brought in what they described as 
a "root and branch bill." They were resisted, not only 



39 2 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1641 

by the clerical party, but by a party of moderate men, 
who wished to preserve episcopacy, while seeking to lib- 
eralize the constitution of the church. Lucius Cary, 
Falkland Lord Falkland, one of the largest-minded, no- 
andHyde. bi es t gentlemen of his day, and Edward Hyde, 
who appears in later times as Earl of Clarendon, were the 
leaders of these. From that day the two parties divergAl, 
and unity of opposition to the king was broken up. 

223. Insurrection in Ireland. These divisions, with 
some revival of ill-feeling between English and Scotch, 
and a reckless stirring up of the fear of Puritans that 
was felt in Ireland, gave new hopes to Charles. He 
went to Scotland to carry on intrigues, and he schemed 
at the same time with Irish Catholics for an army to be 
used in England for his support. Nothing came of his 
work in Scotland, but his plotting in Ireland had terrible 
effects. It fired the passions which Wentworth's harsh 
government had prepared, and an insurrection broke out 
(October, 1641) that set England aflame with excitement 
when news of it arrived. How widespread and savage a 
massacre of English settlers in Ulster and other parts 
of Ireland occurred, is a question in dispute to this day ; 
but there seems to be no doubt that the fury of the 
rising cost great numbers of lives, though early accounts 
went wildly beyond the truth. 

224. The Grand Remonstrance. A new question was 
now to be faced : How could forces for dealing with the 
Irish insurrection be raised without giving a dangerous 
instrument into the king's hands ? Fresh divisions were 
produced between the two houses and between extreme 
and moderate men in both. These were widened by the 
determination of Pym and his followers that the whole 
tyrannical conduct of the government of King Charles, 
from the beginning of his reign, should be plainly reviewed 



1641-1642] 



THE QUARREL. 



393 



and set forth in a Grand Remonstrance, ostensibly ad- 
dressed to the king, but in reality a powerful arraignment 
of the king, intended to revive the memory of his treach- 
eries and tyrannies in men's minds. Many thought this 
a needless raking up of old complaints, after Charles 
had yielded so much, and the Grand Remonstrance was 
carried (November, 1641) by a bare majority of eleven. 

It was soon after this that the king's courtiers began 
to deride the London crowds, which hooted the bishops 
and uttered Puritan cries, by calling them 
"Roundheads," because their hair was close heads and 
cut, whereas the fashion of the day among the 
gentry was to wear it long. The nickname grew in use 
until it became a 
common designa- 
tion for the par- 
liamentary party, 
while those on 
the king's side 
were called " Cav- 
aliers," probably 
taking the t name 
to themselves as 
a boast that they 
represented what 
the Romans 
would have called 
the "equestrian " 
class. 

225. The King 
and. the Five 

Members. If Charles, even at this time, had been capa- 
ble of a temperate and straightforward course, he could 
probably have won back to himself a stronger party than 




JOHN HAMPDEN. 



394 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1642 

that led by Pym. But he struck down his last chance 
by a senseless act. Having secretly schemed an im- 
peachment of five members of the House of Commons, 
Pym and Hampden included, on the charge that they 
had traitorously endeavored to subvert the laws and gov- 
ernment of the kingdom, he went personally (January 3, 
1642), with a following of armed men, to Westminster 
Hall, intending to seize them as they sat in the House. 
Warned of his coming, the five members had withdrawn, 
and he missed his prey ; but by this crowning outrage 
he had put the issue, between Parliament and himself, 
beyond peaceful settlement, and had forced an appeal to 
arms. 

226. Preparations for War. Quitting Westminster 
Hall, as an unsafe place, the Commons followed their 
threatened colleagues tjo the city, but returned a few 
days later in triumph, escorted by great bodies of the 
London people, who had risen in arms. The king left 
Whitehall in affright, never to enter it as a free man 
again. A great part of the Lords remained still in their 
House, acting with the Commons, making Parliament 
complete. Moderate men on all sides labored still to 
find a ground of peaceful compromise and avert civil 
war. For four months the fruitless effort was prolonged, 
and never with a chance of success. 

It was not now the obstinate arrogance of Charles, 
but the unyielding resolution of a radical majority in 
the Commons, that put peace beyond hope. Apparently 
they had no wish to avoid war, for two reasons, that can 
be well understood : (1) They saw no safety for them- 
selves or for the country in any settlement that would 
depend on the good faith of Charles ; (2) they were con- 
templating a religious revolution that was not in the least 
likely to succeed without force. During these months 



1642] THE QUARREL. 395 

of the winter and spring of 1642 the uncompromising 
attitude was theirs, not the king's. When the „ . . „ 

Spirit of 

Lords had yielded to their demand for exclu- tnecom- 

. mons- 

sion of bishops from the upper House, the king 
yielded, too, and approved the bill. On the more vital 
question, of the control of the militia, he offered great 
concessions at last, but refused to abdicate his office in 
military affairs entirely, as the Commons insisted that 
he must do. It was on that question that peace-making 
hopes were finally wrecked, and a warlike arraying of 
forces began. 

But those questions were only on the surface of the 
conflict, after all. The true causes of civil war were 
the determination of a large part of the subjects of King 
Charles to take all power of trick, treachery, and oppres- 
sion out of his hands, whatever other evils they might 
create in so doing, and their equal determina- Puritan 
tion to have their turn in dictating beliefs, determina- 

. . ,. tions. 

forms of worship, and system of discipline to 
the church. Of these, it was the latter — the animus of 
religious feeling — that gave its real energy to the parlia- 
mentary revolt. There was no thought of religious lib- 
erty in its aims ; the Puritan intentions were as intolerant 
as the policy of Laud. Nor was there much conception 
of freedom in the political plans on the parliamentary 
side. Their result, when accomplished, was a revolution 
that simply transferred sovereignty from the king to 
the House of Commons, with powers of oppression un- 
checked ; and, with the possession of those powers, the 
tyrannical temper flashed up as readily in parliamentary 
votes as it had in royal commands. 



396 THE QUARREL. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

202. Charles I. 

Topic. 

i. Charles's character and views. 
References. — Bright, ii. 608, 609; Green, 495 ; Montague, 118; 

Ransome, 138, 139. 

203. Bad Faith in the Beginnings of the Reign. 

Topic. 

1. Charles's marriage and his broken pledges. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 608-614. 

204. The First Parliament of King Charles. 

Topics. 

1. Charles's designs and his treatment of Parliament. 

2. Attitude of Commons and their dissolution. 

3. The king's levies. 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 502, 503. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What were the legal and illegal 
sources of the king's revenues? (Ransome, 151-155.) (2.) What 
might be said to constitute the private property of the crown ? 
(3.) What contributed to make Charles's court expensive ? (Traill, 
iv. 76.) (4.) How would this need for money make for parlia- 
mentary greatness ? 

205. The Cadiz Expedition. 
Topic. 

1. Its plan and failure. 
Reference. — Green, 496-500. 

206. The Second Parliament of King Charles. 

Topics. 

1. Its attitude and impeachment of Buckingham. 

2. Eliot, Hampden, and Pym. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 615-617. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Trace Eliot's career. (Green, 497- 
499, 502, 505, 515.) (2.) Trace Pym's career. (Green, 535, 536.) 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 2>97 

207. Rupture with France. 
Topics. 

i. Causes which led to the rupture. 

2. France joins Spain against England. 
Reference. — Gardiner, P. R., 52-57. 

208. The Forced Loan. 
Topics. 

1. Despotic levy and attempts to enforce the same. 

2. Resistance forces Charles to summon Parliament 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 505-50S. 

209. La Rochelle and the Isle of Re. 

Topics. 

1. Buckingham's expedition to France. 

2. Effect on English feeling of its failure. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 621. 

210. King and Parliament again. — The Petition of 

Right. 
Topics. 

1. Charles's attitude and the new grievances of Parliament. 

2. Union of Lords and Commons upon the Petition of Right. 

3. Charles compelled to accept it. 

4. Importance of petition and its contents. 

5. Contest about the term "tax." 

References. — Bright, ii. 622-624; Green, 501, 502; Ransome, 
142-144; Montague, 119; Gardiner, P. R., 57-60; Taswell- 
Langmead, 539-548 ; H. Taylor, ii. 266-274. Money bills and 
the Commons : Taswell-Langmead, 574, footnote. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What is the right of habeas cor- 
pus? (2.) Why is it a fundamental safeguard to the liberty of 
the subject? (3.) Is the right of habeas corpus ever suspended? 
(Montague, 142, 143.) (4.) Was this a peculiarly English right, 
or was it general ? (5.) How was the validity of the Act of 
Habeas Corpus tested in the time of Charles I.? (Bright, ii. 
619, 620.) 



398 THE QUARREL. 

211. Assassination of Buckingham. 
Topics. 

i. Buckingham's influence removed. 

2. Surrender of Rochelle. 
Reference. — Green, 502-504. 

212. Resistance to Tonnage and Poundage. 
Topics. 

1. Opposition of merchants to the king's levy. 

2. Defection of the Court of Exchequer. 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 512. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What were the names of the other 
two ordinary courts ? (2.) How did these differ in theory from 
the courts of High Commission and of the Star Chamber? (Ran- 
some, 124.) (3.) In practice, how was the king able to dominate 
the ordinary courts ? 

213. Laud and his Church Party. 
Topics. 

1. Dissensions in the church. 

2. Archbishop Laud's character and attitude. 

3. Intolerance of both parties and Charles's declaration. 
References. — Green, 509-514; Gardiner, P. R., 75-82, 85-90. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Why was the idea of toleration pre 

mature at this time? (Gardiner, P. R. 106.) (2.) Why did Par- 
liament take issue with the declaration of Charles I. when they 
had submitted to those of his predecessors? 

214. The Commons in Tumult. 
Topics. 

1. Discussion of tonnage and poundage. 

2. The religious issue and the two aims of Parliament. 

3. Appearance of Oliver Cromwell. 

4. Eliot's resolution and the dissolution of Parliament. 
Reference. — Gardiner, P. R., 65-69. 

215. Government without Parliament. 
Topics. 

1. Refusal to summon Parliament, arrest of Eliot and others. 

2. Reaction against Parliament and defection of Wentworth. 

3. Government's measures to obtain money. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 399 

4. Revival of Star Chamber and Court of High Commission. 

5. Laud's oppressions and the reaction among the people. 
References. — Green, 514-520; Bright, ii. 627-629. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What are commercial monopolies? 

(2.) How did Parliament regard them ? (3.) What were some of 
the monopolies granted by Charles? (Bright, ii. 629.) (4.) What 
was the tenor of Prynne's " Scourge of Stageplayers " ? (Gar- 
diner, ii. 519.) 

216. The Puritan Emigration to New England. 

Topics. 

1. John Endicott and the founding of Salem. 

2. John Winthrop and the colony of Massachusetts Bay. 
Reference. — Green, 505-509. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Of what church were the Puritans? 
(2.) After going to America, what change did they make in their 
church government ? (3.) Why was this a natural change for a 
colony settling in a new country to make ? (4.) Who had a voice 
in settling the affairs of the colony? (5.) Where did they meet 
for such discussions? (6.) If this meeting turned its attention to 
civil affairs, what would it be called? 

217. Wentworth in Ireland. 

Topics. 

1. His government of Ireland. 

Reference. — Bright, ii. 632-636. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What is the most important export 
from Ireland to-day? (2.) Is the surface of Ireland such as to 
make sheep-raising profitable? (3.) Why did Strafford build up 
the flax industry if that tended to destroy the wool industry ? 
(Cunningham and McArthur, 135-138.) (4.) What views were 
current at that time regarding the commerce of colonies ? (5.) 
Is that the right policy to pursue with colonies ? (6.) From what 
you know of the troubles in Ireland, what must have been the 
condition of Irish agriculture? (7.) How far was the English 
government responsible for this? (8.) When James I. ascended 
the throne, why did the Irish Catholics look for kindness from 
him ? (9.) Did the Scotch colony which Strafford planted tend 
to promote harmony ? 



400 THE QUARREL. 

218. Ship-money and Hampden's Refusal to pay it. 

Topics. 

i. Charles's restless ambitions and Noy's advice. 

2. Demand for ship-money and John Hampden's resistance. 

References. — Green, 527-531; Bright, ii. 629, 630; Gardiner, 
P. R., 91-94; Guest, 456,457; Montague, 120, 121; Ransome, 
154, 155; Taswell-Langmead, 561-576; H. Taylor, ii. 265, 286- 
290. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Why did Hampden object to this 
tax of twenty shillings ? (2.) Why was Parliament especially 
interested in the outcome of his trial ? (3.) Contrast the navy 
of those days with that of to-day. (4.) Of what use to a country 
is a navy? (5.) Who has the largest navy of to-day ? (6.) What 
service did Charles render the navy? (Traill, iv. 48.) (7.) Why 
then did the people oppose him ? 

219. Laudism in Scotland. 
Topics. 

1. King James's church policy in Scotland. 

2. Charles's reforms and the riot of St. Giles. 

3. The Tables and the National Covenant. 

4. Action of the General Assembly and the First Bishops' War. 

5. Charles's efforts to obtain support in England. 

6. The Second Bishops' War and the terms of peace. 
References. — Bright, ii. 636-644. Presbyterians in Scotland: 

Gardiner, P. R., 102-108; Bright, ii. 652, 653 ; Green, 522-525. 

220. The Long Parliament. 

Topics. 

1. Great council of peers. 

2. Temper of the new Parliament summoned. 
References. — Gardiner, P. R., 1 10-125; Green, 535-547; Bright, 

ii. 644-658; Montague, 124-127: Ransome, 158-162; Taswell- 
Langmead, 577-586; H. Taylor, ii. 308-348. 

221. Attainder and Execution of Strafford. 

Topics. 

1. Act of attainder against Strafford. 

2. Charles deserts Strafford. 

3. Arrest of Laud and assumption as to guilt of king. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 401 

References. — Bright, ii. 645-649. 

Research Questions. — (r.) Trace the career of Strafford. (Gar- 
diner, ii. 508, 514.) (2.) Define treason. (3.) Was Strafford guilty 
of treason? (4.) Is a bill of attainder justifiable? (5.) What 
excuse for it in this case ? (6.) Describe his trial from Bright, 
ii. 645-649. (7.) This impeachment of ministers shows that the 
Parliament regarded ministers as responsible to whom ? 

222. Restoring the Constitution. 
Topics. 

1. Work of Parliament. 

2. Dissension in Parliament over the church question. 
Peference. — Gardiner, P. R., 113-11S. 

223. Insurrection in Ireland, 

Topics. 

1. Charles's intrigues. 

2. The Ulster massacre. 
Reference. — Gardiner, P. R., 119, 120. 

224. The Grand Remonstrance. 
Topics. 

1. New questions in Parliament. 

2. Object of Pym's party. 

3. Roundheads and Cavaliers. 

References. — Gardiner, ii. 534; Guest, 452, 453; Bright, ii. 
656; Green, 540-543; Taswell-Langmead, 590-597; H.Taylor, 
ii. 311-313- 

Research Questions. — (1.) How was Parliament divided polit- 
ically ? (Bright, ii. 656.) (2.) How was it divided religiously? 
(3.) Was the political or religious object at length attained? (4.) 
The Grand Remonstrance was the embodiment of what sort of 
control ? (5.) The Long Parliament left the constitution in what 
shape ? (Montague, 127.) 

225. The King and the Five Members. 

Topic. 

1. Attempt to arrest five members and its results. 
References. — Gardiner, P. R., 122-124; Bright, ii. 657, 658; 
Green, 544-546; Taswell-Langmead, 597-606; H. Taylor, ii. 
3I5-3I7- 



402 THE QUARREL. 

Research Questions. — (i.) What was wrong about Charles's 
attempt at impeachment? (2.) Describe his visit to the House. 
(Green, 544-546.) 

226. Preparations for War. 
Topics. 

1. The Commons supported by the people. 

2. Obstacles to peace presented by the Commons. 

3. Concessions by the king's supporters. 

4. True causes for the civil war. 

5. The result of the revolution. 

References. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, ch. iii. Agriculture 
and the reclamation of the fens : Cunningham and McArthur, 
182-184; Gibbins, 109-111; Rogers, 452-460; Traill, iv. 115- 
122. Social life: Traill, iv. 157-172. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY. 



Charles I. 1642-1649. 



227. The Eve of the Civil War. By May, 1642, the 
hopelessness of a peaceful settlement was becoming 
plain, and members of the moderate party, as well as the 
thorough partisans of the king, began to slip away from 
both houses of Parliament, going to join Charles at York, 
where he had then fixed his court. Military prepara- 
tions were active on both sides, and the 
king was intriguing for foreign aid. He 
applied to Scotland for assistance, which 
was refused ; and Queen Henrietta, who 
had acquired great influence over her hus- 
band, went abroad, vainly seeking help 
from Denmark and the Dutch. 

In July, Parliament had forces in the 
field, with the Earl of Essex in chief com- 
mand, and had secured control of the fleet ; 
in August, the king formally raised his 
standard at Nottingham, summoning loyal 
subjects to its defence. England was then 
divided into hostile camps. Generally, the party of Par- 
liament controlled the counties of the south and 
east, while that of the king was stronger in the heads and 
north and west. Generally, too, nobles and 
gentry went to the side of the crown, yeomen and towns- 
men into the parliamentary ranks, but that social division 




A CAVALIER. 



404 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1642-1643 

was far from complete. There were many of rank and 
estate who opposed the king, and many who stood by 
him in the towns and on the farms. 

228. The First Battles. At the outset, there was 
little of military training in the forces on either side, and 
the advantage belonged naturally to the Cavaliers, espe- 
cially to their mounted troops, commanded by the king's 
nephew, Prince Rupert, of the Palatine family, who won 
the first success of the war in a skirmish, near Worces- 
ter, at Powick Bridge. The main royal army was then 
at Shrewsbury, preparing to move against London, which 
it presently did. Essex, who had been at Worcester, 
intercepted the march at Edgehill, close by Banbury, 
where the first serious battle was fought (October 23). 
Rupert, in a headlong charge, drove the Roundhead 
cavalry from the field, and kept up a long pursuit, leav- 
ing the weaker part of the king's forces to a desperate 
fight, in which they were nearly overcome. They held 
their ground, however ; Essex withdrew, and the royalists 
advanced, taking Oxford and Brentford, and approach- 
ing London very close. But the militia of the capital 
faced them at Turnham Green so resolutely that Charles 
shrank from the risk of a stroke that might possibly 
have ended the war. He established his headquarters 
at Oxford, and for nearly a year nothing effective was 
accomplished on either side. 

In the scattered fighting that went on through those 
months, the Cavaliers had most frequent success. One 
otherwise trivial skirmish, at Chalgrove Field, near Ox- 
ford (June 18, 1643), cost the life of John Hampden, 
Death of wn0 happened to be near the place when Ru- 
Hampden. p er t' s caV alry came galloping down. He threw 
himself into the fight with them, as a volunteer, and 
received a mortal wound. It was not so much by what 



ENGLAND 

AT THE 

BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR 

WITH HISTORICAL DETAIL 

FROM 

1600 • 1900 

Scale of Miles 




A longitude 4 TVoSt of Qreeow:cTi B 



1643] 



OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY. 



405 



he did that John Hampden was raised to a high place 
in English history as by the impression of a surpass- 
ingly noble character that he left on the minds of politi- 
cal friends and foes. 

229. Oliver Cromwell and his " Ironsides." At mid- 
summer, in 1643, the situation looked promising to the 
king's friends. They had beaten their opponents in sev- 
eral minor fights ; Bris- 
tol had been stormed by 
Rupert, and Gloucester 
was about to be besieged. 
They were planning to 
set free their forces in the 
north and west, for co- 
operation with the army 
at Oxford, expecting to 
hem London in, and they 
seemed likely to succeed. 
Anxiety among the Par- 
liamentarians was giving 
rise to talk of peace. 

But one Puritan leader, 
Oliver Cromwell, was 
making ready at this time to change the aspect of affairs. 
He had left his seat in Parliament, to raise, first a com- 
pany and then a regiment, of such mounted men as might 
face the best of Prince Rupert's troops. Years after- 
wards, in a speech, he told of the plan (being no soldier 
then) on which he set to work : " I raised such Cromwe ii>s 
men," he said, "as had the fear of God before P° llt; y- 
them, as made some conscience of what they did ; and 
from that day forward, I must say to you, they were 
never beaten." Cromwell's men were never beaten, be- 
cause, first of all, as he said, he had picked them for the 




OLIVER CROMWELL. 



406 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1643 

conscience they had in what they did, and also because, 
having the genius of command, he brought them to a 
perfect discipline, and led them with an energy that no- 
thing could resist. 

The scene of Cromwell's first labors in the field was a 

region that embraced his own county of Huntingdon, 

with Cambridge, Hertford, Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, 

that strongly Puritan district acting unitedly, in 

The East- _ ° J . . . . ,, , ' 

em Associ- an Eastern Association, as it was called. 1 he 
Earl of Manchester was major-general of the 
association, but Cromwell, first as one of four colonels 
of horse and soon as second in command, was its master 
spirit and master mind. In July (1643), he was sent into 
Lincolnshire, and the first notable proof that he gave of 
his own military quality and that of his men (who got the 
name of " Ironsides ") was at Gainsborough, where he 
routed a large body of the mounted Cavaliers, and then, 
encountering their main army, protected his infantry in 
a remarkable retreat. This, according to one of his con- 
temporaries, "was the beginning of his great fortunes, 
and he now began to appear in the world." 

Two months later, Cromwell joined Sir Thomas Fair- 
fax, and took part in the routing of a body of 

Winceby 

royalist horse, at Winceby (October 11), which 
forced the Marquis of Newcastle to abandon the siege 
of Hull. 

230. The First Battle of Newbury. Newcastle's fail- 
ure in the north had frustrated the royal plan for bring- 
ing his army to join a movement against the capital ; 
and, meantime, the plan had been equally broken up 
in the west. It depended on the taking of Gloucester, 
which the king, in person, besieged. Essex made a bold 
march from London, with the train-bands of the city, to 
rescue the town, and Charles withdrew ; but Essex, on 



,,6 4 3] OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY. 407 

his return, was fought at Newbury (September 20) and 
nearly suffered defeat. The noble Falkland was among 
the many who fell in this fight. 

231. The Solemn League and Covenant with the 
Scots. Parliament now opened negotiations with the 
Scots, who offered help against Charles on the condition 
that their Presbyterian system should be adopted in the 
organization of the English church. But most of the 
English Puritans, though inclined to a Presbyterian sys- 
tem, were unwilling to surrender the church so entirely 
to the control of its clergy as the Scotch had done. 
That serious obstacle to an alliance was overcome, how- 
ever, in the treaty as it was finally framed. The agree- 
ment made was for the reformation of religion in Eng- 
land and Ireland " according to the Word of God and the 
example of the best reformed churches." "According 
to the example of the best reformed churches " meant to 
Scotch Presbyterians their own church ; " according to 
the Word of God " meant to English Puritans their own 
interpretation of the Word ; and thus both parties were 
made willing to sign the " Solemn League and Cove- 
nant," as the instrument was styled. 

The alliance with the Scots was the last work of John 
Pym, who had been thus far the statesman of the Puri- 
tan revolution, the strong, inflexible, sagacious 
,, * 1 1 1 t» i< • 1 tt- John p y m 

leader who held Parliament to its work. His 

great labors were undoubtedly the cause of his death 
(December 8, 1643). 

An Assembly of Divines, appointed by Parliament, 
was already in session at Westminster, revising 

The West- 

the Thirty-nine Articles, and considering ques- minster 
tions connected with the constitution of the 
church, but entirely subject to the authority of Parlia- 
ment in what it did. 



4oS 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1643 " n 



232. The King looking to Ireland. While Parlia- 
ment was arranging its alliance with the Scots, the king 
had looked to Ireland for reinforcements, and, by a truce 
with the insurgent Catholics, had been able to bring- 
away some regiments of the English who served there. 
He then opened negotiations with the Irish Catholics, 
who were willing to give him 10,000 men, in return for 
an independent Irish Parliament and a reestablished 
Catholic church. These dealings with the Irish caused 
a bitter feeling among his friends and seriously harmed 
his cause. 

233. Marston Moor and Lostwithiel. In the spring 
of 1644, a Scottish army, under Alexander Leslie, Earl 

of Leven, joined Fair- 
fax, Manchester, and 
Cromwell in besieg- 
ing the Marquis of 
Newcastle at York. 
By a long march, 
Prince Rupert came 
to Newcastle's aid, 
and reached the be- 
leaguered city on the 
1st of July with 18,000 
men. Not satisfied 
with forcing the be- 
siegers to withdraw, 
he followed them, 
with Newcastle's army 
added to his own, to 
Marston Moor (July 
2), and suffered there the most disastrous defeat that 
either party had sustained since the war began. Crom- 
well and his troops were the winners of the fight, driving 




&w 



PRINCE RUPERT. 



1644] OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY. 409 

Rupert's cavalry from the field and then returning to 
rescue the remainder of the army from defeat. The 
scattering and capture of the royal army were so com- 
plete that Rupert gathered only 6000 horsemen from 
the wreck. Newcastle fled the country in shame. The 
king's cause was lost in the north. 

This great success of the Parliamentarians in the north 
was offset in a large measure by disagreements among 
them and failures in the south. Essex had placed nearly 
10,000 men in a situation at Lostwithiel, near Fowey, 
in Cornwall, from which there was no escape, 

. , n 1 • o 1 i Incompe- 

and they were compelled, in September, to lay tencyof 
down their arms. In the following month, the Manches- 
inertness of Manchester, who wanted peace, 
caused a second battle with the king at Newbury to be 
practically lost. Both Essex and Manchester were now 
discredited as military commanders, and resolute move- 
ments to displace them were begun, with Cromwell in 
the lead. 

234. Growth of Independency and Republicanism. 
The feeling of Cromwell and his followers at this 
time was not merely that of soldiers disgusted with in- 
active commanders ; it had, beyond that, a religious and 
a political side. A rapid spread of thought was going 
on, particularly in the army, which doubted the need of 
any king, and which doubted still more whether the in- 
terests of religion required one creed, or one form of 
worship, to be forced on all men by one oppressive 
church. 

A few broad thinkers, like Milton and Roger Williams, 
had begun to lead the reason and the moral sense of 
men towards religious toleration as an absolute Christian 
principle ; but, even without rising to their view, many 
others were being forced by the circumstances of the 



410 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1644-1645 

time to see the folly of attempts to compel men to think 
Religious alike in matters of religion, or to worship God in 
toleration. one prescribed way. Cromwell, for example, 
did not understand toleration as a principle, for he had 
no thought of extending it to practices, either Roman 
or Anglican, that seemed idolatrous to him. But, in- 
side the bounds of what he held to be Protestant belief 
and worship not idolatrous, he wished the exercises of 
religion to be free, in such congregations as people chose 
to form. Such ideas of a limited toleration he shared 
with an increasing body of men ; and this rising party, 
to which the old name of the Independents was given, 
was soon to be formidable, with a man like Cromwell at 
its head. 

Generally, the Presbyterians, who formed a large ma- 
jority in Parliament, were carrying on the war with a view 
to the saving of the monarchy, after forcing the king 
to surrender some of the powers that he claimed and to 
join them in a reconstruction of the church. Essex, 
Presby- Manchester, and other military chiefs agreed 
andinde- w ^ tn them, and acted with those aims. On 
pendents. t ne other hand, the Independents were becom- 
ing convinced that the war could have no satisfactory 
end until there had ceased to be a king and a prescribed 
ceremony in the worship of God. Thus the original 
Puritan party, from whose resistance to a tyrannical king 
the civil war sprang, was now divided into two, between 
which there was coming a struggle over the conduct 
and the objects of the war. 

235. The Self-denying Ordinance and the New Model 
Army. The situation that existed in the fall and winter 
of 1644-45 called Cromwell back to his seat in Parlia- 
ment, where his influence soon appeared in two radical 
measures, both of which were carried after a contest 



1644-1645] OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY. 411 

quite prolonged. The first, called the Self-denying Ordi- 
nance, excluded every member of Parliament from mili- 
tary command ; by which means Essex, Manchester, and 
others of their kind were quietly put aside. Cromwell 
shared their fate — for the time being, but not for long. 
The second act provided for a reorganization of the army 
on a national footing, supported no longer by voluntary 
contributions, but by a general tax. Over the army of 
the New Model, as it was known, Sir Thomas Fairfax- 
was made commander-in-chief, with large powers in the 
selection of officers of subordinate rank. The office of 
lieutenant-general was left unfilled, none doubting that 
Cromwell would occupy it in due time. 

Fairfax was a soldier who ignored parties, religious and 
political, so completely that none knew his views. But 
he admired Cromwell, shared his spirit in the war, and 
was open to his advice. Naturally, therefore, the New 
Model of the army was a Cromwellian model ; 

J A Crom- 

it was officered, for the most part, by fervently weiiian 
religious men, who filled its ranks with " Iron- 
sides " of their own stamp. It gave to the Independents 
a power which the Presbyterian Parliament would be 
utterly unable to resist, if a serious conflict came. 

236. The Execution of Laud. While the Self-denying 
Ordinance and the army bill were pending, Archbishop 
Laud suffered a long-delayed retribution at the hands of 
those whom he had oppressed. For months he had been 
on trial before the few peers who remained in the House 
of Lords. Then his enemies, fearful that he would 
escape, resorted to a bill of attainder, like that which 
doomed Strafford, and sent him to the scaffold, on the 
1 Oth of January, 1645. 

237. Montrose in the Highlands. In the fall of 1644 
a threatening movement in the north of Scotland was 



412 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1644-1645 



begun by James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, originally 
a Covenanter, who became dissatisfied with the govern- 
ment set up under the Duke of Argyle. Having adopted 
the cause of the king with fiery zeal, Montrose made his 

way into the Highlands 
and there roused the clans 
that were enemies of the 
great Clan Campbell, of 
which Argyle was chief. 
In his hands the fierce 
Highlanders became ef- 
fective soldiers and car- 
ried all before them. The 
lands of the Campbells 
were terribly harried ; 
large forces of the Cove- 
nanters were defeated, and 
Dundee was taken and 
sacked. Early in the sum- 
mer of 1645, Montrose 
was prepared for an actual 
conquest of the Lowlands, and practically accomplished 
it for the moment by two fresh victories, at Alford and 
Kilsyth. Glasgow and Edinburgh submitted to him, and 
Argyle's government was broken up. 

238. The Battle of Naseby. — End of the First Civil 
yZa,r. The successes of Montrose in Scotland came too 
late. Before his last victories were won, the royal cause 
in England had received a shattering blow. Fairfax, with 
his new army well in hand, had obtained authority to 
quit sieges and wasteful scatterings of his force, and to 
fight Charles as soon as possible in the open field. On 
the request of the army and the petition of London, 
Cromwell had been exempted from the Self-denying 




JAMES GRAHAM. MARQUIS OF MONT- 
ROSE. 



1645-1646] OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY. 413 

Ordinance, had been appointed lieutenant-general, and 
joined Fairfax just in time to take part in the decisive 
fight. The king's army was brought to a stand at the 
Northamptonshire village of Naseby, on the 14th of June, 
and, being not more than 7500 strong, against nearly 
14,000, it was utterly crushed. 

A political no less than a military disaster overwhelmed 
the king at Naseby. By the capture of his correspond- 
ence and other papers, all his intrigues with Discovery 
the Irish Catholics and with the French, for ^^ s 
foreign soldiery to be brought into England, intri e ues - 
were made public, and inflamed English feeling against 
him anew. 

After Naseby, there were twelve months more of war, 
mostly sieges, before the royalists were completely over- 
come. Cromwell was especially busy in this concluding 
work. " There are few parts of England where one fails 
to meet some ruined castle or dismantled manor- Cromwell's 
house, of which the local rumor records that ' it actmtv - 
was battered clown by Cromwell in the troubles.' " 1 The 
most important sieges were of Bristol, where Rupert 
surrendered in September, and of Basing House, a great 
stronghold in Hampshire, stormed and destroyed the 
next month. 

During September, all that Montrose had gained in 
Scotland was lost. His Highlanders dropped Defeatof 
away, until only a few hundreds of followers Montrose - 
remained. With those he attempted to join the king in 
England, but was attacked at Philiphaugh, and his little 
company cut to pieces, though he escaped. 

239. The King's Surrender to the Scots. Long after 
his followers generally had lost hope, the king kept them 
under arms. Apparently there was no time during the 
1 F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, ch. v. 



414 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1646-1647 

year after Naseby in which he might not have made terms 
fairly favorable for himself with the Scots, and even with 
the English Presbyterians, by agreeing to their religious 
demands. But, faithless as Charles showed himself to 
be in so much of his conduct, he was heroic in fidelity 
to the English church, and, rather than consent to its 
overthrow, he steadfastly declared that he would lose 
his crown and his life. Negotiating, more or less, with 
all parties among his opponents, he sought to play them 
against each other, and to gain time, always hoping for 
some advantage to himself from the ill-temper that was 
growing up between Presbyterians and Independents, 
Parliament and Army, English and Scots. It was not 
until May, 1646, when his last refuge, at Oxford, was 
about to be attacked, that he personally surrendered, 
not to the English, but to the army of the Scots, making 
his way to their camp, before Newark, in disguise. 

The surrender of the king to the Scots did not mean 
submission to their terms. He still thought that he 
could work them to a quarrel with the English and use 
them for his own ends. Parliament had offended them 
in many ways ; its promised payments to them were far 

in arrears ; it was slow in establishing the Pres- 
andthe byterian church, and it intended to make that 

church subject to Parliament, which was contrary 
to Scotch ideas. The situation would have opened oppor- 
tunities to a really shrewd opponent ; but Charles schemed 
until the quarrelling parties were more ready to make 
terms with one another than to parley longer with him. 

240. The King given up by the Scots. Before the 
close of the year 1646, the Scots had come to an agree- 
ment with the English Parliament, in accordance with 
which they delivered the king to English commissioners 
(February 3, 1647), an d marched away to their own coun- 



r647] OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY. 415 

try, leaving the English Presbyterians and the Independ- 
ents to settle matters between themselves. Those two 
religious parties, one controlling Parliament and the other 
controlling the army, were probably both opposed by a 
majority of the whole nation ; but that majority could 
only look on while the " sectaries," as they were called, 
strove against each other for power. 

241. Parliament and Army. Parliament brought on 
the strife by attempting to disband the army without 
providing for arrears of pay, and by treating its petitions 
with insult and rebuke. Cromwell exerted his influence 
in Parliament and in the army to make peace ; but the 
course of the parliamentary leaders left him no chance. 

The soldiers had organized a parliamentary body of 
their own, composed of representatives, called Agitators 
(using the word in the sense of "agents"), The 
elected from each regiment, and were giving A s itators - 
close attention to public affairs. Parliament was known 
to be secretly negotiating with the king, and, towards the 
end of May, Cromwell learned that Charles had agreed 
to an establishment of the Presbyterian church for three 
years, during which time some permanent settlement 
should be arranged. The Scots were to be brought in 
again to help establish the king's government on those 
terms. That information determined his course. 

242. The King in the Hands of the Army. When 
Cromwell had decided to lead opposition to Parliament 
his measures were prompt. He gave secret orders to a 
certain Cornet Joyce, who made a quick march to Holmby 
House with a picked body of horse, and secured posses- 
sion of the king. The movement was a complete sur- 
prise ; Charles was successfully removed to Newmarket 
(June 8, 1647), and held there under guard. 

The army leaders then attempted, without success, to 



416 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1647 

make terms with the king, and to persuade Parliament, 
at the same time, to fix a date for its own dissolution 
and for the election of a new House. A period of con- 
siderable disorder ensued. The Independent 

PrtrlinriiGiit 

in confu- members of Parliament were frightened away 
by a London mob ; whereupon the army, under 
Fairfax, marched into the city, and many Presbyterians 
left Parliament in alarm. 

Meantime, fresh proposals, very carefully drawn up by 
Cromwell's son-in-law, Ireton, had been submitted to the 
king. They outlined a scheme of constitutional govern- 
ment, with a tolerant church, a responsible administra- 
tion, and a popular Parliament, which went farther to- 
wards what has since been realized in England than any 
Proposals political plan framed before. The king rejected 
to the kmg. ^gjjj [ n n j s haughtiest tone, having opened a 
new intrigue with the Scots, and being full of confidence 
that a powerful army from the northern kingdom would 
soon pour into England, to make him, in his own words, 
"really king again." 

But the " Heads of Proposals," as Ireton's scheme was 

known, dissatisfied a large faction in the army as much 

as they did the king. The republican Inde- 

The Heads . J , £ ,, 

of Pro- pendents were numerous, and some of them, 
called Levellers, held extreme democratic and 
socialistic views. They were opposed to all dealings with 
the king. Against this faction Cromwell stood in bold 
contention for many months. With his clear, practical 
grasp of facts, he could see that England was not pre- 
pared for republican government ; that there would be 
failure in an attempt to set it up by the little half-vision- 
ary party on which it must depend ; and that the best 
hope of rescue from the confused political state into 
which Enoland had fallen was in some kind of guarded 



1647-164S] OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY. 417 

restoration of the king to his throne. If the king had 
been any man except Charles I., Cromwell and other 
reasonable men of the time might have found a way to 
success. 

243. Escape of the King to the Isle of Wight. 
Against the Heads of Proposals the democrats brought 
forward a project of radical revolution, styled the " Agree- 
ment of the People," and excited a mutiny in the army, 
which Cromwell sternly repressed. There were threats 
at the same time against the king, which alarmed him, 
and he contrived to escape to the Isle of Wight, where 
he hoped to be safer and more free. He was confined, 
however, in Carisbrooke Castle, as strictly a prisoner as 
before, yet with liberty enough to be able to finish his 
intrigue with the Scots. He signed a secret " Engage- 
ment " with their agents in December, 1647, which pro- 
mised on his side to establish the Presbyterian church in 
England for three years, suppressing all the sects, and 
on their side to send an army to his support. Cromwell 
had early knowledge of what the king was doing, and 
abandoned further efforts in his behalf. — 

244. The Second Civil War. Movements in Scot- 
land to carry out the agreement with Charles were begun 
in the spring of 1648. They were followed by risings 
in Wales and Kent, with the London Presbyterians in a 
threatening mood. Fairfax suppressed the insurrection 
in Kent, and Cromwell dealt with that in Wales, after 
which the latter marched northward to meet the Scots, 
who had entered England under the Duke of Hamilton, 
in July, and taken Carlisle. With 8600 men, Ba ttieof 
he attacked 24,0x30, according to his reckoning Preston - 
of the enemy, at Preston, on the 17th of August, and 
fought and pursued them for three days, until he had 
slain, captured, or scattered them all. 



418 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1648-1649 

245. Pride's Purge. While the second civil war was 
being thus quickly fought out, Parliament had reopened 
conferences with the king, on the old plan of intolerance 
for everything except the Presbyterian church. This 
was more than the victorious army could be expected 
to endure. Cromwell, Ireton, and others urged a forci- 
ble dissolution of Parliament, preparatory to a new elec- 
tion ; but, on the 5th of December, a meeting of officers 
with Independent members of the House of Commons, 
who feared the result if an election should be held, de- 
cided in favor of what was styled a " purging " of the 
House, by expulsion of the members whose doings were 
disliked. This high-handed measure, which ended the 
last pretence of constitutional authority in the English 
government, was carried out the next day by a regiment 
of soldiers, commanded by Colonel Pride. One hundred 
and forty-three members were thrust from the House 
of Commons by what received the name of " Pride's 
Purge," leaving a small remainder, known afterwards as 
"the Rump." 

246. Trial and Execution of the King. The " purg- 
ing " of the Commons was followed by clamors for the 
trial of the king, and an ordinance for his arraignment 
was adopted by the fragment of a House, which then 
proceeded to create a High Court of Justice, to form 
which 135 commissioners were named. Sixty-eight of 
these, only, appeared at the sittings of the court, in 
Westminster Hall. Cromwell took his place with them ; 
Fairfax refused. On the 20th of January, 1649, Charles 
was brought into the presence of this court and impeached 
as " a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacable 
enemy of the Commonwealth of England." He proudly 
refused to recognize the tribunal by any answer or de- 
fence, and was condemned to death. A scaffold for his 



1649] 



OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY. 419 




TRIAL OF CHARLES I. 



execution was erected at the front of the palace of White- 
hall, and there, on the 30th of January, he was beheaded, 
submitting to his fate with a courage and dignity that 
showed his character at its best. 

No man ever suffered for treason in England who had 
wronged the country so deeply as Charles, or brought 
so dire a calamity upon it. His condemnation, if pro- 



420 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1649 

nounced by a lawful tribunal, and his execution, if com- 
manded by the nation, would have been indisputably 
just. But, as it was, he became the victim of a usurpa- 
tion of power more lawless than the worst of his own, 
and was so glorified in his death on the scaffold by a 
semblance of martyrdom that all the falsities of his life 
have been obscured. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

227. The Eve of the Civil War. 

Topics. 

1. The king at York and his appeals for assistance. 

2. Essex in command of the parliamentary forces. 

3. Division of people and country between the two causes. 
Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, 54-58. 

Research Questions. — (1.) For what two reasons did men turn 
to the king? (2.) Name and describe two noted men who acted 
on these two reasons respectively. (Green, 542.) (3.) How did 
the king and how did Parliament get money for war. (Bright, ii. 
665.) 

228. The First Battles. 

Topics. 

1. Cavalier success at Powick Bridge and Edgehill. 

2. The militia at Turnham Green. 

3. John Hampden's death and character. 
References. — Gardiner, P. R., 127-130; Colby, 193-195- 

229. Oliver Cromwell and his " Ironsides." 

Topics. 

1. Royalist successes early in 1643. 

2. Cromwell's army. 

3. Cromwell at Gainsborough and Winceby. 
References. — Bright, ii. 662; Harrison, Oliver Cromwell; 

Green, 553-596; Gardiner, P. R., 128-183; Guest, 463-475 ; Tas- 
well-Langmead, 61 1 ; H. Taylor, ii. 325~355 : Macaulay, i. 91-108 ; 
Hallam, ii. 2-32. 
Research Questions.— (i.) Give the comparison which Crom- 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 42 1 

well makes between the royal forces and those of the Parliament. 
(Gardiner, P. R., 129.) (2.) What sort of genius did this show 
him to possess ? 

230. The First Battle of Newbury. 

Topic. 

1. Essex's efforts to raise the siege of Gloucester. 
Reference. — Gardiner, P. R., 130, 131. 

231. The Solemn League and Covenant with the 
Scots. 
Topics. 

1. Parliament negotiates with the Scots. 

2. Solemn League and Covenant ; Westminster Assembly. 
Reference. — Gardiner, P. R., 131-137. 

232. The King looking to Ireland. 
Topic. 

1. Negotiations with Ireland and its effect. 
Reference. — Green, 550, 551. 

233. Marston Moor and Lostwithiel. 

Topics. 

1. The battle of Marston Moor. 

2. Royalist victory at Lostwithiel. 

3. Inefficiency of Essex and Manchester. 
Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, 73-78. 

234. Growth of Independency and Republicanism. 

Topics. 

1. Growing feeling as regards a king and religious toleration. 

2. Differing views of Presbyterians and Independents on the 

preservation of the monarchy. 
References. — Presbyterians and Independents: Gardiner, ii. 
543; Bright, ii. 670-672, 680-684 ; Green, 555 ; Gardiner, P. R., 
130-142; Macaulay, i. 90, 91. 

235. The Self-denying Ordinance and the New Model 

Army. 
Topics. 

1. Cromwell's two measures in Parliament. 



422 OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY. 

2. Fairfax and the army of the New Model. 
Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, 84-89. 

236. The Execution of Laud. 
Topic. 

1. The Bill of Attainder. 

237. Montrose in the Highlands. 

Topic. 

1. His Highland army and its victories. 

Reference. — Gardiner, P. R., 142, 143. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Of what race were the Highlanders? 
(2.) Why would they naturally take the side of the king ? (3.) 
Why would they make good soldiers ? (4.) What other branch 
of the same race as the Highlanders did the English have for 
neighbors ? (5.) Which side did they take in the civil war ? 

238. The Battle of Naseby. — End of the First Civil 

War. 

Topics. 

1. Fairfax's victory at Naseby and capture of the king's papers. 

2. Close of the war in England and Scotland. 
Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, 89-99. 

239. The King's Surrender to the Scots. 
Topics. 

1. The king's obstinacy and his tactics. 

2. His surrender at Oxford and renewed intrigues. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 677-679. 

240. The King given up by the Scots. 
Topics. 

1. Scots deliver up the king. 

2. Strife for power between the sectaries. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 679, 680. 

241. Parliament and Army. 
Topics. 

1. Mistake of parliamentary leaders. 

2. The Agitators. 

3. Secret negotiations between king and Parliament. 
Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, 104-110. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 423 

242. The King in the Hands of the Army. 

Topics. 

1. Cromwell secures the king. 

2. Attempt of army leaders to make terms with the king. 

3. Fairfax enters London. 

4. Ireton's proposals to the king and Charles's reply. 

5. The Levellers and Cromwell's view of the situation. 
Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, m-119. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What danger was there in the army 

overawing the Parliament? (2.) What can be said in justifica- 
tion of the army's action. (Gardiner, P. R., 148.) 

243. Escape of the King to the Isle of Wight. 
Topics. 

1. The Agreement of the People. 

1. The king in Carisbrooke Castle. 

3. The 6ecret " Engagement " with the Scots. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 684-686. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Why did neither party feel that it 

was possible to make terms with Charles? (2.) What was the 

king's design ? (3.) What effect did the breaking out of war 

anew have on the feeling toward him ? 

244. The Second Civil War. 
Topics. 

1. Fairfax in Kent. 

2. Cromwell in Wales and Scotland; battle of Preston. 
Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, 120-126. 

245. Pride's Purge. 
Topics. 

1. Parliament reopens negotiations with Charles. 

2. Purging of the House. 

Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, 126-128. 

246. Trial and Execution of the King. 

Topics. 

1. Creation of High Court of Justice and trial of Charles. 

2. His execution. 

3. Illegality of his sentence. 

Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, 128, 129. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 

The Rump Parliament and Oliver Cromwell. 1649-1660. 

247. The Founding of the Commonwealth. A small, 
sifted remnant of the House of Commons, elected more 
than eight years before, was all that the wreck of consti- 
tutional government in England had now left, to act with 
pretended authority in the national name. Yet this little 
band of men assumed to be, not merely a true House 
of Commons, one branch of a true Parliament, but a full 
and complete government for " the Commonwealth of 
England," as the state was now described. It abolished 
the House of Lords as " useless and dangerous," and 
"the office of a king " as "unnecessary, burdensome, and 
dangerous ; " and so it boldly took all the functions of 
government into its own hands. It did so by no power 
in itself, but as the instrument and agent of an army, 
that had come to be likewise a political party and a 
strange confederation of religious sects. 

For executive action in the government, a Council of 
State was appointed, which became scarcely more than 
TheCoun- a parliamentary committee, since thirty-one of 
cii of state. - ts f or ty-one members were taken from the 
membership of the House. John Milton, the poet, was 
appointed Latin secretary to the Council, and conducted 
its correspondence with foreign states. 

248. The Late King's Son. Immediately on receiv- 
ing news of the execution of his father, the late king's 



i6 49 ] COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 425 

son, Charles, then in Holland, assumed the royal title, 
and set forth his claim to the throne. At Edinburgh, 
he was proclaimed king at once, on condition that he 
should " give satisfaction concerning religion," accord- 
ing to the covenants. In Ireland, he was offered the 
support of a combination that had been formed between 
Catholics and Protestant royalists ; but they, too, imposed 
conditions, which called for an independent Parliament 
and a free Roman church. Between the two proposals, 
Charles, an indolent and frivolous youth, who dreaded 
the grim Covenanters, decided to accept the Irish offers 
first, and preparations for making Ireland a base of opera- 
tions against England were soon under way. 

249. Cromwell in Ireland. The royalist plans in 
Ireland were known early to the heads of the English 
Commonwealth, and Cromwell was sent to deal with 
them. He reached Dublin in the middle of August 
and began a horribly merciless campaign. Moving first 
against Drogheda, or Tredah, twenty-three miles from 
Dublin, a place defended by about 3000 picked offi- 
cers and men, he took it by storm and slaughtered the 
garrison to the last man. At Wexford there was an- 
other general massacre after the storming of the town. 
Cromwell's excuse for these atrocities was that they 
would "tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the 
future " by stopping resistance ; but nothing that he 
gained in that way could compensate for the undying 
passion of hatred that he kindled in the Irish heart. As 
he began the war he continued it, with a cruelty that can 
never be forgotten. In the spring of 1650, danger to 
England from Irish royalism was so far ended that 
Cromwell could return home. 

250. War with the Scots. Cromwell was needed in 
England to defend the Commonwealth against the Scots. 



426 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1650 

They had brought the young Charles Stuart to their 
terms, when he found his hopes from Ireland cast down. 
He had agreed to sign the Covenant, to become a Pres- 
byterian, to join the Scots in forcing Presbyterianism on 
England and Ireland, and to deal harshly with Catholi- 
cism in both. He was playing a deceitful game, which 
the Covenanters appear to have understood quite as well 
as his friends. 

The agreement of Charles with the Covenanters was 
practically a betrayal of Montrose. He had sent that 

bravest of his friends into 
Scotland, on a mission of 
hostility to the very cove- 
nanting party which he now 
embraced as his own. Mont- 
rose had entered the High- 
lands in the early part of 
April (1650), to attempt 
again what he had done in 
1644-45, but had met with 
disappointment and defeat. On the day (May 1) when 
Charles was signing his treaty of alliance with the Cove- 
nanters, at Breda, in the Netherlands, his faithful servant 
was a fugitive, flying from their soldiery, in the Scottish 
hills. On the 18th of May the fugitive had 
of Mont- become a captive, and entered Edinburgh, tied 
hand and foot, in a cart. On the 21st he was 
hanged. Twelve days later, Charles, then acquainted 
with the fate of Montrose, set sail from Holland to re- 
ceive a crown from the hands that had put his loyal 
friend to death ; and on the way he bound himself once 
more to the Covenants by a solemn oath. 

The chiefs of the English Commonwealth did not wait 
for the Presbyterian attack from the north ; they fore- 




COMMONWEALTH FLAG 



i6 5 i] COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 427 

stalled it. Within a month after Cromwell's return from 
Ireland, he was on his way to take command of the army 
already assembled on the Scottish border ; within another 
month he was marshalling it in the suburbs of Edinburgh, 
offering battle to the Scots. Manoeuvring followed, in 
which he was outdone by the Scottish general, David 
Leslie, and was compelled to fall back to Dunbar for 
supplies. Leslie pursued, with a force twice the strength 
of the English, and the latter, for a time, were Battle of 
dangerously placed ; but the Scots, by a fatal Dunbar - 
change of position, offered Cromwell an opportunity that 
he was swift to improve. A sudden charge in the early 
morning (September 3) threw them into confusion, and 
drove their cavalry in flight through crowded masses of 
half-wakened foot-soldiers, producing utter panic and rout. 
The city of Edinburgh surrendered, though its castle 
held out for three months. Leslie gathered the frag- 
ments of his wrecked army at Stirling ; Charles and the 
government were at Perth. 

The grasp of the Presbyterian clergy on political affairs 
in Scotland was broken by the defeat at Dunbar, and a 
party rather national than religious was formed around 
Charles. On the 1st of January, 165 1, he was 
formally crowned at Scone. "With no scruples ingof 

. Charles II 

to hold him back," says the most careful his- 
torian of the period, " he had lied his way into the com- 
manding position which was now his." 1 It was a position 
soon lost. 

251. Scottish Invasion of England. — Battle of 
Worcester. Cromwell was disabled by illness in the 
spring of 165 1, and it was not until July that movements 
against the Scotch at Stirling were seriously begun. By 
crossing the Forth and taking Perth he cut their sources 

1 S. R. Gardiner, Commonwealth and Protectorate, vol. i. ch. xiv. 



428 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1651 

of supply, which forced them to quit Stirling and move 
south. They were then persuaded by Charles to push 
on to England, where thousands of royalists, he expected, 
would rise to join them as they advanced. Cromwell had 
foreseen the undertaking, and his measures for defeating 
it were well prepared. As the army of Charles marched 
rapidly down the western side of the island, through Car- 
lisle, Cromwell followed as rapidly by the eastern route, 
gathering forces that were ready in place for him on the 
way, and when the Scots reached Worcester he was in 
their path, with nearly twice their number of men, and 
better prepared for fight. Few royalists had joined them, 
even in the counties that had been strongest for the king. 

On the 3d of September — exactly a year after the 
battle of Dunbar — Cromwell made his attack, and fin- 
ished, there at Worcester, his military work. He had 
no more battles to fight. The Scottish army was de- 
stroyed. Charles escaped and was a hunted fugitive in 
The royal England for six weeks, concealed by royalists 
fugitive. anc | p asse( j f r om place to place, disguised as a 
servant or a farmer's son, with a stained and sometimes 
smutted face ; hidden once in the foliage of an oak at 
Boscobel, and going through numberless romantic adven- 
tures, which he seems to have enjoyed. At last, he was 
taken by a fishing vessel to the French coast. 

The Scottish invasion and its tremendous defeat had 

roused a feeling in England which Cromwell and the 

more enlightened leaders were anxious to take advantage 

of, in the election of a new Parliament. They 

Want of a 

newPariia- used their influence to bring about a dissolution 
of " the Rump ; " but that usurping body could 
not be induced to give way. And so an opportunity 
for possibly settling the Commonwealth on some broader 
basis of popular consent was lost. 



i6 S i] COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 429 

252. Scotland and Ireland. The strength of Scot- 
land was broken at Worcester, and General Monk, whom 
Cromwell left in the north, had little trouble in complet- 
ing a practical conquest of the country. Ireton and 
Ludlow were employed for something more than two 
years in finishing the subjugation of Ireland after Crom- 
well left them. Then followed what has been called the 
Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, a barbarous measure, 
for which Cromwell is held responsible in the main. It 
was an attempt to sweep the whole population of Irish 
property owners from three fourths of the island, into 
the one district of Connaught, taking their lands and 
giving them smaller allotments in the wilder western 
region, on which to live. The laboring people were left 
behind, for the service of the new settlers (English sol- 
diers and other colonists) who took possession of the 
confiscated lands. All other royalist and Catholic Irish, 
and even citizens of several English-peopled towns, were 
ordered to remove into Connaught before May 1, 1654, 
on pain of death. The monstrous ejectment could not 
be perfectly carried out ; but enough was done to cause 
measureless suffering and grief, and measureless hate. 

253. The Maritime Revival. Half a century of domes- 
tic disturbance had deadened the spirit of maritime enter- 
prise and ambition which stirred England in the Eliza- 
bethan age. Meantime the superiority of the Dutch had 
increased. They had become the carriers of most of the 
commerce of the world, with the spice trade, the herring 
fisheries, the whale fishery — all sources of immense 
wealth — ■ in their hands. But now English energy began 
again to make itself felt. 

One of the parliamentary generals, Robert Blake, was 
sent to sea to learn the art of naval war, which he did 
with remarkable success. Swarms of royalist privateers 



43° THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1651-1652 
were driven off ; Portugal was chastised for giving them 



Admiral 
Blake. 



shelter and aid 



the English flag was carried 



proudly into the Mediterranean ; and when 
Blake left those waters his place was taken by Admiral 
Sir William Penn, whose son became, thirty years later, 
the founder of a great American state. 

254. The Navigation Act. Determined now to re- 
cover their own carrying trade, at all costs and imme- 
diately, the English ex- 
pelled the Dutch from it 
by a famous Navigation 
Act, passed in 165 1. 
The act forbade the car- 
rying of merchandise to 
and from England and 
her colonies in other 
than English ships, or 
ships of the countries 
from which imported 
goods came. It accom- 
plished the object at 
which it was aimed, but 
it did so at heavy cost. 
English shipping inter- 
ests were forcibly built up ; but the process required 
time, and other interests suffered in that time. Trade 
was lost ; many industries were crippled ; consumers 
paid high prices ; both England and her colonies were 
troubled by the ill-supply of many wants. In the end, 
however, the English were masters of a greater carrying 
trade than that of the Dutch. 

255. "War with the Dutch. The last touch to many 
irritations between the English and the Dutch was given 
by the Navigation Act, and war came to an outbreak in 




ROBERT BLAKE. 



i6 53 ] COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 43 1 

the summer of 1652. It was wholly a naval war, in which 
Blake on the English side and Tromp and De Ruyter on 
that of the Dutch were the heroes of long renown. From 
the first engagement of the war, the laurels were taken 
by Blake, though with no substantial results. In Novem- 
ber, he was overpowered off Dungeness, and beaten, by 
Tromp, who then threatened the Thames, took cattle 
from the Sussex coast, and swept the Channel trium- 
phantly with a broom at the head of his mast. In the 
following February, Blake had his revenge, recovering 
the mastery of the Channel from Tromp and De Ruyter, 
after a three days' fight. A two days' encounter in June 
went again in his favor ; but a wound kept Blake out of 
the final battle of the war, which was fought in the 
Texel, on the last day of July, 1653, and won by the 
English soldier Monk. The great admiral, Tromp, fell 
in the fight, and his countrymen suffered defeat. In 
arranging peace, the English strove hard to bring about 
a political union of the two commonwealths in one ; but 
the Hollanders would not consent. 

256. Cromwell's Dissolution of the Rump. Neither 
Cromwell nor anybody else in the Commonwealth gov- 
ernment was willing to give the whole English people a 
free and full chance to elect such a Parliament as they 
might choose, for they knew that the enemies of the 
Commonwealth outnumbered its friends ; but those who 
opposed the Rump wished to put in place of that worn- 
out body some kind of a " new representative " that 
would command more respect. One fanatical faction, 
known as Fifth Monarchy Men, claimed that govern- 
ment should be kept in the hands of "godly people" of 
their own sects. Cromwell and his friends desired a 
broader representation, but not broad enough to let dan- 
gerous opponents of the Commonwealth in. The major- 



432 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. 



[1653 



ity in the Rump, led by Sir Henry Vane, wished to per- 
petuate their own membership, and to appoint elections 
to fill vacancies only, while they, the sitting members, 
might admit or reject the newly elected as they saw fit. 

The question ' at issue was settled in a rough way by 
Cromwell, on the 20th of April, 1653, when information 
came to him that the House was about to pass an elec- 
tion bill in the form it desired. He hurried in anger to 
the Hall, followed by a guard of soldiers, and broke in 
on the proceedings with a speech which grew more vio- 
lent as he went on, ending with the exclamations, " We 
Cromwell's have had enough of this ! I will put an end 
speech. tQ this j j t j s nQt fit y QU s h ou id sit here any 

longer ! " He then called in his soldiers and bade them 




GREAT SEAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH, SHOWING THE RUMP PARLIAMENT. 



clear the House. As the members went out he cried to 
them : " It is you who have forced me to this ; for I have 
sought the Lord night and clay, that He would rather 
sjay me than put me upon the doing of this work." 

This violent act of Cromwell's is not easily to be 
judged, for the reason that the body calling itself a Par- 
liament had no more constitutional right to act as a 



i6 5 3] COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 433 




SIR HENRY VANE. 



Parliament than he had the right to break it up. Con- 
stitutionally, everything was in chaos. The only way 
in which the nation could recover a lawful government 
was by some free action of 
its people at large, and that, 
as the people then felt, was 
certain to destroy the men 
of the Commonwealth and all 
their work. Circumstances 
had carried Cromwell and 
Vane and their associates to 
a situation so difficult that we 
may hesitate to judge what 
they did. 

257. The Barebones Par- 
liament. As " Captain Gen- 
eral and Commander - in- 
Chief " of the forces of the 

Commonwealth, Cromwell now assumed executive au- 
thority, acting with a Council of State. Soon after- 
wards, letters were sent out to the Independent or 
Congregational churches of the country, asking them to 
recommend persons fit to be members of a " New Re- 
presentative." Partly selecting from the lists thus ob- 
tained, and partly choosing otherwise, the Council made 
up an assembly of 140 persons, five taken from Scotland 
and six from Ireland, who were summoned, without other 
election, to meet at Whitehall, on the 4th of July, to act 
as a Parliament for the three countries, now assumed to 
be united in one. It was known as the Little Parlia- 
ment ; but the presence of one member who bore the 
strange name of Praise-God Barebone, or Barbon, led 
the royalists to call it derisively "the Barebones Parlia- 
ment." 



i 



434 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1653-1654 

This so-called Parliament was filled with earnest men ; 
but the majority were lacking in practical knowledge, and 
plunged into schemes of law reform and church arrange- 
Dissoiu- ment which caused great alarm. Its career 
tl0n - was ended before the year closed. The minor- 

ity had seized a moment when they were present in supe- 
rior numbers, and had declared the House dissolved. 

258. The Instrument of Government. — The Pro- 
tectorate. The Barebones Parliament was dissolved on 
the 1 2th of December, 1653. On the 15th, a long medi- 
tated constitutional plan, styled the Instrument of Gov- 
ernment, was agreed upon between Cromwell and his 
officers, and, according to its provisions, he was solemnly 
installed the next day as Lord Protector of the Common- 
wealth of England. Many had urged him, it seems, to 
take the title of King, but he refused. His authority as 
Protector, under the Instrument, was to be limited by a 
Parliament and a Council, each largely independent in 
power. 

The Instrument provided for a Parliament to be elected 

by persons owning property to the value, at least, of ^200, 

then equal to far more than the same sum at the present 

day. At no time were Roman Catholics to be permitted 

to vote, and for the first three elections none 

Parliamen- 

tary could vote who had taken part in any war against 

the Parliament. This last exclusion shut out 
all loyalists and all those Presbyterians who had favored 
the recent attempt of Charles II. To keep control still 
more surely of the make-up of Parliament, the Council 
was made judge of the quaiifrcrrtions of members-elect. 

259. The Protector and his First Parliament. The 
first Parliament elected under the provisions of the In- 
strument of Government did not meet until September, 
1654, the Protector and Council being authorized mean- 



1654] COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 435 

time to make needed ordinances and laws. In this period 
they ordered the organization of the church on a footing 
of congregational freedom, excepting that the use of the 
Prayer Book was not allowed. The Court of Chancery 
was reformed ; the union of England, Scotland, and Ire- 
land in one commonwealth was decreed ; the Dutch war 
was brought to a close ; treaties of commerce and alli- 
ance were concluded with Portugal, Sweden, and Den-, 
mark ; the business of state abroad and at home was 
managed with a powerful hand. 

Despite the precautions used to secure a friendly Par- 
liament, it began immediately to revise the Instrument 
of Government, aiming at an enlargement of its own 
powers. The Protector promptly interfered, reminding 
members that they had pledged themselves when elected 
not to alter the government, and requiring them to re- 
peat that pledge. Those who refused (about Attempts 
one fourth of the whole) were arbitrarily ex- at revision, 
pelled from their seats. Even this did not stop the 
attempt of Parliament to amend the constitutional In- 
strument ; and in January, 1655, the Protector used his 
power to put an end to its work. 

This is the critical point in Cromwell's political career, 
— the point at which his statesmanship came to a final 
test. If any possibility existed of some arrangement that 
would provide a government for England to take the 
place of his own personal rule, without violently bringing 
the old state of things back, he cast it away when he 
" purged " and then dissolved the Puritan Parliament 
elected in 1654. There may have been no' such possi- 
bility ; but nothing shows that he fairly attempted to 
bring about a statesmanlike study of the situa- Cromwell's 
tion by all parties together. Nor does anything failure - 
show that he had the kind of capacity needed to inspire 



436 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1656 

and guide such a study, by political instincts and insight 
of his own. He was a man of amazing force in master- 
ing circumstances as they came upon him, and in com- 
manding an active obedience from men ; but the genius 
of great statesmanship, which forecalculates and antici- 
pates, and which exerts influence as well as power, is not 
to be clearly seen in Oliver Cromwell, extraordinary man 
as he was. 

260. The Last Years of Cromwell's Domestic Rule. 
A more openly military character was given to the Protec- 
tor's government within six months after Parliament had 
been dismissed. Royalist plots gave the excuse for an 
organization of ten military districts, each commanded 
by a major-general, with arbitrary powers. One of the 
duties of the generals was the collection of a tax of ten 
per cent, on the incomes of royalists, which tax was im- 
posed by the Protector more autocratically than anything 
ever dared by an English king. 

A second Parliament was called in 1656 ; but, even with 
his major-generals to manage elections, the Protector 
found it necessary to shut out nearly a hundred of the 
members sent up, before it became a manageable House. 
Again amendments to the Instrument of Government 
were discussed, but this time with the Protector's con- 
TheHum- sent. They were submitted to him in a docu- 
and P Ad tion ment s ty led The Humble Petition and Advice, 
vice. which boldly urged him to take the title of King. 

Strong arguments in support of the proposal were pressed ; 
and Cromwell might reasonably have been persuaded 
that the new order of things would be more acceptable 
if settled into the old monarchical forms. But the re- 
publicans of the army were enraged by the suggestion, 
and he put it aside. 

The title of the Protector's office was left unchanged, 



165S] COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 437 

but it was clothed with more dignity and surrounded with 
more state. He was empowered to appoint his successor, 
and also to select persons for the making up of a second 
House in Parliament, to take the place of the House of 
Lords. This "Other House," for which no 

The 

other name could be found, never ceased to be "Other 
an object of scorn. When the Parliament, after 
adjourning for some months, met a second time in Janu- 
ary, 1658, the members excluded from the first meeting 
were allowed to take their seats, and they gave so much 
trouble that a speedy dissolution was the result. 

261. The Protector's Foreign Wars. In foreign 
policy it was Cromwell's desire to do what Queen Eliza- 
beth and King James I. had each been solicited to do 
and would not, — namely, to put England at the head of 
a great Protestant league. The time for that had passed. 
With the ending of the Thirty Years' War, religion ceased 
to be a leading motive in European politics and war. But 
in Cromwell's government the religious influence was 
still alive. 

It made him more willing for war with Spain than with 
any other power, and was mixed with the English desire 
for a better footing in American trade. The two motives 
were combined in an abrupt demand on the Spanish 
court, made in 1654, for freedom of commerce in the 
West Indies, and for religious freedom to English sub- 
jects in the dominions of Spain, both of which demands 
were refused. A fleet, already prepared, under 
Penn and another commander, sailed instantly against 
for the Antilles, struck without success at San pai1 
Domingo, and took Jamaica, which has been an English 
possession from that day. Then, in alliance with the 
French, the English fought Spain in the Netherlands, 
and took the port of Dunkirk (June, 1658) for their share 
of the conquests made. 



438 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1658 

But, before entering the alliance with France, Crom- 
well required, as the price of it, that a horrible persecu- 
tion of Protestants (the Waldenses, or Vaudois), in the 
The dominions of the Duke of Savoy, should be 

vaudois. stopped. One of the grandest of Milton's 
sonnets, "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints," was 
inspired by the sufferings of the Vaudois. 

When Penn went to the West Indies, Blake entered 
the Mediterranean with another fleet and compelled both 
in the Med- tne Duke of Tuscany and the pirates of Tunis 
iterranean. t0 p a y indemnity for wrongs to English mer- 
chants and ships. The English flag had never been so 
vigorously upheld in foreign waters before. 

262. Oliver Cromwell's Death. In July, 1658, the 
Protector was so stricken with grief over the fatal illness 
of his favorite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, that he gave 
no heed to business for some weeks. Before her death, 
on the 6th of August, he himself had sickened, and on 
the 3d of September, the anniversary of Dunbar and 
Worcester, he died. He died, as most surely he had 
lived, with absolute sincerity in the religious beliefs for 
which, more than for any political cause, or for any per- 
sonal aim, he had labored and fought. 

Until he felt the touch of death, Cromwell seems to 
have decided nothing as to what should be done or at- 
tempted for the government of England after he laid it 
down. In his last hours, when almost speechless, he is 
thought to have named his elder son, Richard, to be Pro- 
Thesuc- tector in his place; but there is no certainty 
cession. ^^ even tn j s tardy and futile determination 
had been reached in his mind. It was so poor an ending 
to his work, so empty a conclusion, that one cannot feel 
willing to accept it for the best that statesmanship wield- 
ing great power could have brought about. 



i6 59 ] COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 439 



263. Richard Cromwell and the Army. Richard 
Cromwell was an amiable man, with none of his father's 
strength, in intellect or will. His government was ac- 
cepted quietly for a few months ; but when a Parliament 
had been elected which undertook to bring the army 
under constraint, the latter became threatening at once. 
The Protector dissolved the Parliament (April 22, 1659), 
in obedience to military demands, and abdicated his office 
in the following month. Forty-two members of the old 
" Rump " had been invited by the soldiers to assemble 
and take civil authority 

once more into their 
hands. From May until 
October they conducted 
the government, with 
an arrogance that in- 
creased until they, too, 
quarrelled with the 
army and were driven 
out of Westminster 
Hall. Then, for two 
months, there was an 
open rule of the sword, 
with strifes of ambition 
among the officers, and 

public excitements so alarming that the Rump was taken 
back. 

264. The Action of General Monk. Meantime, the 
forces in Scotland, under General Monk, had become dis- 
gusted with the conduct of the soldiery at London, and 
were willing to interfere. Monk was a soldier, apparently 
indifferent to the political and religious questions of the 
time, who could look at the state of the country with a 
calculating eye ; and he thought it ripe for action that 




GEORGE MONK. 



44° THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1660 

would give him leadership in a settlement of affairs. His 
men were ready to follow, and, on the first of January, 
1660, he led them across the border into England. At 
York, he was joined by Fairfax, and everywhere there 
was joyful applause as he went on. Lambert, of the 
London army, attempting to oppose him, was deserted 
by the men he led. Entering London on the 3d of Feb- 
ruary, Monk listened to all parties and deliberated, until 
he knew that the meeting of a free and full Parliament 
was what the nation desired. On his demand, the mem- 
bers ejected by " Pride's Purge," in 1648, were seated 
again with the Rump, to revive the Long Parliament, 
just long enough to authorize writs for a general elec- 
tion ; then it voted its own dissolution, after a nominal 
duration of twenty years. 

In the new Parliament, the Presbyterians were numer- 
ous, but a general eagerness to restore the monarchy and 
recover the old order in the country prevailed. The 
exiled Charles had already sent over from Breda a De- 
claration, vaguely promising amnesty, liberty of con- 
science, etc., so far as Parliament should approve. In 
reality, he had promised nothing for himself ; but, with 

no more than this doubtful pledge from him, he 
The . . , 7 ^ ■, 

monarchy was invited to the long empty throne. On the 

25th of May, 1660, he landed at Dover ; on the 
29th he entered London ; and the greater part of Eng- 
land, weary of strife, resentful of military and religious 
dictation, in dread of universal disorder, rejoiced madly 
because it had a king again. 

265. The Puritans and their Enemies. The extreme 
Puritans who ruled England in the period of the Com- 
monwealth and the Protectorate had made themselves 
hateful to the great body of the people by their stern 
notions of religious duty, more than by their political 



COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 441 



exercise of usurped power. The life of this world, as 
they looked upon it, was a serious time of preparation 
for the life to come, and its ordinary pleasures were 
temptations, for the most part, to be resolutely put aside. 
Their consciences, unfortunately, required more than the 
ruling of their own lives by this 
idea ; they believed that author- 
ity had been put into their hands 
to make it the rule of life for all. 
They strove, accordingly, with 
grim determination, to suppress 
many forms of popular amuse- 
ment, some of which were mor- 
ally as innocent as others were 
not. They not only forbade 
bearbaiting, which was brutal, 
horse - racing, which had many 
evil influences, and theatrical per- 
formances, which were often, in 
that clay, immoral, but they cut 
down the May-poles on English 
village greens, ordered Christmas 

to be kept as a fast day, and interfered with sports and 
festivities of almost every kind. If all who did 
these things had been as sincere as those were encewith 
who began it, there might have been less to spor s ' 
resent. But the power which the true Puritans acquired 
drew hypocrites into their ranks, who outdid them in 
pretended religious zeal, and who undoubtedly gave occa- 
sion for much public hatred and contempt. Neverthe- 
less, the profound sincerity that was in Puritanism at the 
bottom left plain effects in English life and character 
that have lasted and are to be seen to this day. 

266. Thought and Letters. The great age of English 




PURITAN DRESS. 



442 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. 




literature, which ran from the later years of Elizabeth to 
the early years of Charles I., was followed by a time of 
change, rather than of debasement or dearth. The pen 

of Milton, throughout 
the Puritan epoch, kept 
poetry upon its highest 
plane ; and though verse 
of a great quality was 
written by no other, and 
though no poet except 
Herrick could claim 
even a second rank, 
there were equivalents 
in the rise of a noble 
prose. From Milton 
himself we have more 
prose than poetry in 
these years; while Sir 
Thomas Browne, 
Thomas Fuller, Jeremy Taylor, Richard Baxter, were 
proving that the measured rhythm of verse is not 
needed for splendid eloquence in the English tongue. 
Hobbes and Lord Herbert of Cherbury were giving new 
thoughts to philosophy ; Bunyan was brooding over 
dreams from which the "Pilgrim's Progress" was after- 
wards wrought. 

A scientific curiosity concerning the natural world was 
beginning to enter many minds, and men who interested 
themselves in physical and chemical experi- 
ments were holding meetings to compare and 
discuss them, at London and Oxford, from which meet- 
ings, presently, the great Royal Society came forth. 



JOHN MILTON. 



Science. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 443 
TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

247. The Founding of the Commonwealth. 
Topics. 

1. Remnant of the House of Commons and its action. 

2. Council of State and its secretary. 

References. — Green, 464-466, 526, 527, 531, 543, 544,572, 573, 
601-605; Gardiner, P. R., 88, 89, 96, 97, 140-142, 175, 193-196; 
Traill, iv. 423-426 ; Patison's Life of Milton. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Previous to the death of Charles, 
to whom was the Presbyterian party opposed ? (2.) Was it on 
good terms with the army? (3.) Did the army have a majority 
among the people ? (4.) On what point only could the two par- 
ties unite ? (5.) What then was the political wisdom of remov- 
ing Charles ? 

248. The Late King's Son. 
Topics. 

1. Charles II. proclaimed in Scotland and Ireland. 

2. His choice between the two. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 691. 

249. Cromwell in Ireland. 
Topics. 

1. The storm of Drogheda and the massacre of Wexford. 

2. Judgment of Cromwell's campaign. 

References. — Bright, ii. 692,693; Gardiner, ii. 562, 563; Green. 
574, 575 ; Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, ch. viii. ; Gardiner, P. R., 
156, 157; Guest, 468, 469; Macaulay. i. 100, 101. 

250. War with the Scots. 
Topics. 

1. Charles signs with the Covenanters and betrays Montrose. 

2. Cromwell at Edinburgh and the battle of Dunbar. 

3. Surrender of Edinburgh. 

4. Charles crowned at Scone. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 693-696. 

251. Scottish Invasion of England. — Battle of 
Worcester. 
Topics. 

1. Cromwell's movements and Charles's march into England. 



444 COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 

2. Battle of Worcester and Charles's flight. 

3. Unsuccessful attempt to dissolve the " Rump." 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 696-698. 

252. Scotland and Ireland. 

Topics. 

1. Monk in the North and Ireton and Ludlow in Ireland. 

2. Cromwellian settlement of Ireland. 

References. — Green, 589, 590; Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, 145- 
147. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What race antagonism between the 
settlers from England and the original Irish ? (2.) Show how the 
Scottish settlers may have been nearer to them in blood ? (3.) 
What antagonism was there between the Scots and the Irish? 

253. The Maritime Revival. 
Topics. 

1. The Dutch and their carrying trade. 

2. Robert Blake and Admiral Sir William Penn. 
References. — Bright, ii. 700. 701 ; Colby, 200-203. 
Research Questions. — (1.) From whom had the Dutch but lately 

won their independence? (2.) In what way would Spain send 
her troops to overrun Holland ? (3.) How did this tend to build up 
the Dutch navy ? (4.) Why could not Spain send her troops over- 
land ? (5.) When their independence was won, to what use could 
the Dutch put their ships ? (6.) Show from her resources why 
the people of Holland took naturally to the carrying trade ? (7.) 
What colony had Holland founded in America ? (8.) What trade 
supported it in great part ? (9.) What is her richest colony to- 
day? (10.) For what did the Spaniards value their colonies? 
(11.) For what did the Dutch and English value theirs? 

254. The Navigation Act. 
Topics. 

1. Its intention and content. 

2. Its success and ill effects. 

References. — Gardiner, ii. 564, 565 ; Bright, ii. 698-701 ; Gibbins, 
128, 168; Cunningham and McArthur, 120-124; Gardiner, P. R., 
162 ; Traill, iv. 272, 273, 454, 620, 621. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 445 

255. War with the Dutch. 
Topics. 

1. Outbreak of the war. 

2. Early Dutch success, later victories of Blake and Monk. 

3. Reasons for England's success. 
Reference. — Green, 577-581. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Had the Dutch ever been willing to 
be joined with England ? (2.) What had been their reason for 
desiring it? (3.) How did they feel about it now? (4.) What 
relationship of royal families made the English unfriendly toward 
the Dutch ? (5.) What racial kinship is there between the Eng- 
lish and the Dutch ? (6.) Are the two races likely to have equally 
good fighting qualities? (7.) When did the Dutch settle in South 
Africa? (8.) What other people have mingled with them there 
beside the English ? (9.) Where did Cromwell get the money to 
pay for the Dutch war? (Gardiner, ii. 565.) (10.) Is war a good 
way to settle difficulties? (11.) Do wars seem to decrease with 
the advance of civilization? (12.) What is meant by interna- 
tional arbitration? (11.) Mention some occurrences which seem 
to indicate the growing strength of the idea of arbitration. (14.) 
What claims of the United States against England arising from 
the civil war were settled by arbitration ? 

256. Cromwell's Dissolution of the Rump. 
Topics. 

1. Objections to a free Parliament. 

2. Designs of different parties and Cromwell's action. 

3. Causes which led to this action. 
Reference. — Colby, 199, 200. 

Research Questions. — (1.) When was this Parliament elected 
which Cromwell now dissolved ? (2.) What good work had it 
done? (3.) Why had Cromwell no constitutional right to dis- 
solve it. 

257. The Barebones Parliament. 
Topics. 

1. Cromwell as the executive of the nation. 

2. Selection of a " New Representative." 

3. Nickname and membership of this body. 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 566-568. 



44^ COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 

Research Questions. — (i.) When were the Welsh admitted to 
Parliament ? (2.) Was the decree against Catholics withdrawn 
yet? (3.) Of what religion were the real Irish? Were there 
then any representatives of the real Irish admitted to Parlia- 
ment ? 

258. Instrument of Government. — The Protectorate. 
Topics. 

1. Instrument of Government and Cromwell Lord Protector. 

2. Provisions of the Instrument. 

References. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, ch. ii.; Gardiner, ii. 
568; Bright, ii. 704, 705; Green, 585, 586; Ransome, 164-166; 
Montague, 132, 133. 

259. The Protector and his First Parliament. 
Topics. 

1. Ordinances of the Protector and Council. 

2. Immediate action of the new Parliament. 

3. Cromwell purges and dissolves the new Parliament. 

4. Cromwell's lack of true statesmanship. 
Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, 187-191. 

260. The Last Years of Cromwell's Domestic Rule. 

Topics. 

1. The ten military districts. 

2. Second Parliament, its humble Petition and Advice. 

3. Powers conferred on the Protector. 

4. Second session of this Parliament and its dissolution. 
Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, ch. xii. ; Gardiner, ii. 

572, 573 ; Bright, ii. 710 ; Green, 595; Traill, iv. 243. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Why was Cromwell ready to ap- 
prove the Petition and Advice? (Bright, ii. 710.) (2.) Was Crom- 
well's a more, or a less personal government than that of 
Charles ? (3.) Was it more or less despotic ? 

261. The Protector's Foreign Wars. 
Topics. 

1. His foreign policy. 

2. Cause of war with Spain ; Jamaica and Dunkirk. 

3. The Vaudois persecution and Blake in the Mediterranean. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 447 

References. — Gardiner, ii. 571, 572; Bright, ii. 708; Green, 
59 2 > 593? 596; Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, ch. xiii. ; Guest, 473- 
475; Macaulay, i. 107, 108; Traill, iv. 260-264. 

262. Oliver Cromwell's Death. 
Topics. 

1. Circumstances of his death. 

2. The condition of affairs at Cromwell's death. 
Reference. — Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, ch. xiv. 

263. Richard Cromwell and the Army. 
Topics. 

1. Character of Richard Cromwell. 

2. He dissolves Parliament and abdicates. 

3. Rule by a portion of the Rump and by the sword. 
Reference — Bright, ii. 716, 717. 

264. The Action of General Monk. 
Topics. 

1. Monk takes control. 

2. The long Parliament revived. 

3. A new Parliament restores the monarchy. 

4. Declaration of Breda and joy over Charles's return. 
References. —Bright, ii. 718-721 ; Colby, 203-205. 

265. The Puritans and their Enemies. 

Topics. 

1. Attitude of extreme Puritans toward amusements. 

2. Intermixture of hypocrisy. 

References. — Macaulay, i. 124-130 ; Macaulay, Essay on Milton, 
last part. 

266. Thought and Letters. 

Topics. 

1. A time of change in literature. 

2. Milton, the greatest poet. 

3. Great prose writers. 

4. Beginnings of science. 
Reference. — Green, 600-616. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 

Stuart Kings : Charles II. — James II. 1660-1688. 

267. Charles II. The second Charles Stuart, brought 
back like a conquering hero to the throne which his father 
lost, was one of the most worthless of English kings. 
He had all the vices that were in the blood of his race, 
and he added worse ones that were particularly his own. 
He was shameless in the profligacy of his life, and sur- 
rounded himself with the vilest court that England ever 
knew. 

A work of vengeance was the first to be taken up by 
the new Parliament and the restored king. Fourteen, 
Theregi- m a ^» °f tne prominent Roundheads, mostly 
cides. « regicides," as the judges of the late king were 

called, suffered death. The bodies of Cromwell and 
Ireton were dragged from their tombs in Westminster 
Abbey to be hanged ; those of Pym, Blake, and others 
were cast into pits outside. 

268. The Vengeance of the Church. It was religion, 
more than politics, that sharpened the vengeful temper 
of the royalists when they recovered power. The king, 
having secretly given such belief as he had to the Roman 
communion, desired toleration for the Catholic church ; 
but the question in Parliament was between the Presby- 
terians, who had taken substantial possession of the 
established church, and those who expected to drive 
them out. Cromwell had not disturbed the Presbyterian 



i66o] 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 



449 



system, beyond relaxing it to make room for some Bap- 
tist and Independent congregations, as well as for a con- 
siderable number of quiet parsons of the old church, who 
were left in peace. 

For some months the Presbyterians were kept in good 
humor by talk of 
a reconstructed 

church, in which 
presbyters and syn- 
ods should remain 
and bishops should 
be brought back to 
preside. But when 
the Presbyterian 
Parliament had 

voted a liberal reve- 
nue to the king, and 
had been dissolved, 
every pretence of 
willingness to make 
a religious compro- 
mise was dropped. 
The king was not 
active in what fol- 
lowed, but simply cast off his promises, and allowed his 
royalist friends to have their way. Their leader was that 
Edward Hyde, friend of Falkland, who had acted with 
the Puritans in 1641-42, until the conflict came T heEariof 
to blows (see section 222). He had been the clarendon, 
chief minister of Charles I. during the war, and had 
passed into the service of Charles II., who made him 
Earl of Clarendon and lord chancellor, and trusted him 
in most affairs. 

A new Parliament was elected in the spring of 1661, 




CHARLES II. 



45° THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1661-1664 

while enthusiastic loyalty burned everywhere, and nine 
tenths of the Commons chosen were ardent Cavaliers. 
They began by ordering the " Solemn League and Cove- 
nant " (see section 231) to be burned by the common 
hangman. Then they drove the Presbyterians from their 

political strongholds, in the towns, by passing 
poration a Corporation Act, which practically excluded 

the members of that communion from office in 
municipal corporations, where the election of town repre- 
sentatives in Parliament was generally controlled (see 
section no). The next blow struck was in an Act of 
Uniformity, passed in the spring of 1662, which expelled, 
from churches, schools, and universities, every minister 

and teacher who failed to declare, within a 

TheNon- . , ' 

conform- given time, his " unfeigned assent and coil- 

ists - II , • ■ 1 t» 1 r r- 

sent to everything m the Book of Common 
Prayer. No less than 2000 Nonconformists, as they 
were called, left their pulpits and chairs on the appointed 
day. 

Expecting that the Nonconformists would be driven 
by these persecutions to support him, the king now 
claimed that he had authority to relax the intolerant. 
The king's laws, or to grant exemptions from them, and 
design. h e intended by that means to give freedom of 
worship to Catholics and Protestants alike. But when 
his intention was understood, it stirred up the old alarms 
of English Protestants afresh. 

An act passed in 1664 punished attendance at any 

religious meeting of more than five persons, held in 

any other manner than as practised by the 

The Con- J r ■' 

venticie church of England, with imprisonment or trans- 
Act and the . r r . . 
Five-Mile portation, for terms varying from three months 

to seven years. At the next session of Parlia- 
ment a still worse law was enacted, permitting no Non- 



1664-1665] RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 45 1 

conformist minister to come within five miles of a corpo- 
rate town, or parish, or place in which he had preached 
or taught. These detestable laws were cruelly enforced. 
More than 8000 Protestants are said to have been im- 
prisoned during the reign of Charles II., besides Catho- 
lics in great numbers. 

269. The Cavalier Parliament and the King. During 
several sessions, the Cavalier Parliament seemed as much 
in haste to destroy the checks which the Long Parlia- 
ment had put upon the king as it was to reestablish a 
despotic church. But even the fanatical loyalty of the 
Cavaliers was cooled in a few years by the conduct of 
Charles. They were forced to see what he was ; how 
incapable of any sense of duty, or honor, or shame. To 
•obtain more money for his pleasures, there was nothing 
that he would not do. The first shock of awakening 
to his real character occurred probably on the Saleof 
discovery, in 1662, that he had sold Dunkirk, Duilkirk - 
Cromwell's conquest from Spain, to Louis XIV. of 
France ; but that was the least ignoble of his many deal- 
ings with the French king. 

270. War with the Dutch. Clearer light was thrown 
on the character of the restored Stuart and his crovern- 
ment by their management of a war with the Dutch, 
which was reopened in 1665. The causes of the war 
were mostly such as arose from the rivalry of the two 
peoples in trade, and acts of hostility were begun, on the 
African and American coasts, a full year before war was 
formally declared. One of the first of these acts was 
the seizure, in 1664, by an English fleet, of the Dutch 
colony of New Netherlands in America, which the king 
had granted in advance to his brother, the Duke of 
York, and which thenceforward bore the name of New 
York. 



45 2 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1665-1667 

Popular feeling ran strongly in favor of the war, and 
Parliament voted an unexampled grant of money to carry 
it on. But Charles made free use of the war fund for his 
minions and himself. At the outset, the navy was in 
good condition, and of course it fought well. It was 
what Cromwell and Blake had made it, in superior ships 
and armament, and in prestige. In two out of three 
tremendous battles fought during 1665 and 1666 it had 
the honors of victory, without much fruit. Between 
those encounters, a third took place, so obstinate that 
the fighting was kept up for three days, and both fleets 
TheEng- were half destroyed. But the English navy 
hshnavy. ^ad reac h ec j the end of its strength at the be- 
ginning of 1667. The money that should have repaired 
its losses and kept it properly equipped had been wasted 
by the king, or stolen by official thieves. De Ruyter 
was able, in that year, to sail boldly up the Thames to 
Gravesend ; to burn three ships of war in the Medway, 
and to keep London in blockade for some days. The 
war ended while the nation was writhing under this dis- 
grace ; but England came out of it with no less a gain 
than the great province of New York. 

The " besotted loyalty," as Mr. Hallam describes it, of 

the first years of the Restoration had been effectually 

killed. Even the Cavalier Parliament had become ready 

to put restraints on the king, and began to 

Account- . . r 1 • t • 

ingde- demand accounts 01 his expenditure, appointing 

mauded. . ., , , 

commissioners to examine them and make re- 
ports. The proceedings then taken established the prac- 
tice in Parliament of making definite appropriations of 
money for purposes distinctly set forth, and holding the 
crown to them by strict accounts. 

Clarendon, the lord chancellor, fell a victim to the 
angry discontent of the time. He had been very useful 



1665-1667] RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 453 

to the king, and his daughter, Anne Hyde, was married 
to the king's brother, James, Duke of York; Fa i lof 
but neither king nor duke stood by him when clarendon - 
he was assailed. When the Commons impeached him, 
in 1667, he was coldly advised by Charles to fly, and did 
so, becoming an exile in France for the remainder of 
his life, and finishing there a history of the civil war, 
which gives him his best title to fame. 

271. The Plague and the Great Fire. In the midst 
of the Dutch war, London was twice afflicted in a most 
terrifying way. A visitation of plague in 1665 exceeded 
in horror the worst that had been known since the awful 
" black death " of three centuries before. In the next year 
the city (then containing about half a million people) was 
half destroyed by one of the most appalling conflagrations 
in history. Calamitous as the fire seemed, it proved to 
be the greatest of blessings in the end ; for it burned 
out the filthy breeding-places of plague, which never 
appeared seriously in London again, and the city when 
rebuilt was vastly improved. 

272. The Cabal. On the fall of Clarendon, the direc- 
tion of public affairs fell mostly under the control of five 
men, who were called The Cabal, because that word hap- 
pened to be formed by the initials of their names : Clif- 
ford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley (better known by 
his later title, as Earl of Shaftesbury), and Lauderdale. 
They formed an inner section of the larger body of royal 
counsellors called the Privy Council, and their so-called 
Cabal is considered to have been the first shaping of the 
English Cabinet of succeeding times. 

273. The Triple Alliance. The first fruit of the 
change in government was a change of policy with re- 
ference to France. This was forced by a public feel- 
ing, shown strongly in Parliament, of alarm at the rising 



454 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1667-1672 

power and threatening ambition of Louis XIV. of France. 
The French king was attempting to lay hands on the 
Spanish Netherlands, evidently meaning, when they were 
subdued, to attack the Dutch. The Dutch claimed Eng- 
lish support against him, and public opinion compelled 
Charles to yield it, against his will. A Triple Alliance, 
between England, Holland, and Sweden, was arranged 
in 1668, which warned Louis XIV. away from the con- 
quests he had planned. 

274. Charles as a Hireling of Louis. The king now 
renewed his efforts to give toleration to Catholics and 
Protestant Nonconformists ; but he was resisted with 
greater bitterness than before. Angered and mortified 
by the defeat, and longing to be absolute, like the King of 
France, he sold himself to a disgraceful vassalage under 
Louis XIV., for French money and French swords, to 
Treaty of De used in a new attack on English liberty and 
Dover. j aw> j n a se cret treaty, signed at Dover, in 
June, 1670, he agreed to betray his Dutch allies, to assist 
in their subjugation by Louis, and to make a public pro- 
fession of the Roman Catholic religion, — an act which 
was certain to produce in England a religious civil war. 
In return, he was to receive a large yearly payment of 
money, and 6000 French troops for use in England to 
crush the expected revolt. Of this treaty, nothing was 
known to the Protestant counsellors of Charles, but they 
were tricked by a sham treaty, concluded at the same 
time, in which no mention of religion was made. 

275. The Declaration of Indulgence. The attack on 
the Dutch was opened treacherously, without warning, 
in the spring of 1672. At the same time, Charles made 
the first move in his own plans, by reasserting his author- 
ity to suspend the penal religious laws, and issuing a 
Declaration of Indulgence to that effect. For Protestant 



1672-1673] RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 455 

Nonconformists, licensed places of public worship were 
to be allowed ; while Catholics were to have only free- 
dom of worship in their own homes. Even this moderate 
measure of indulgence roused more passion than Charles 
had the firmness to resist. 

By defrauding public creditors, he was able to post- 
pone a meeting of Parliament until the next spring, 
and his Declaration was in effect throughout that year. 
When Parliament met, the king faced it with an air of 
great resolution, saying, " I am resolved to stick to my 
Declaration ; " but before a month was gone his resolu- 
tion had oozed away. Unfortunately he had stirred up 
fears and passions which his surrender was not sufficient 
to allay. 

276. The Test Act. That the king was in secret a 
Roman Catholic had come to be suspected, but not 
known. There was no concealment, however, of the 
fact that his brother James, Duke of York, had entered 
the Roman church ; and others near the king were be- 
lieved to be attached to the ancient faith. Parliament 
now determined to drive all Catholics from office, by 
requiring every official to declare his disbelief in the fun- 
damental doctrine of the Roman church (the doctrine 
of Transubstantiation), relative to the real presence of 
the body of Christ in the elements of the Lord's Supper. 
The intended effect was produced so far that the Duke 
of York, Clifford, and others resigned. 

277. The Country Party. The secret of the infamous 
Treaty of Dover began to leak out, just enough to alarm 
the circles through which it spread. Shaftesbury had 
got an inkling of it, and was furious at the trick of the 
sham treaty by which he had been deceived. Charles 
tried by bold denials to cover his secret again, solemnly 
assuring Parliament, in a speech, that the sham treaty 



45^ THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1673-1678 

was the only treaty he had made with France ; but there 
was no longer any trust in his word. A party, known 
as the Country Party, which had been growing slowly 
in Parliament for some years, now rapidly increased. It 
inclined to Puritanism, regarded the Roman church with 
extreme fear, was in dread of France, and detested the 
scandalous court. Shaftesbury, who was the most dex- 
terous politician of his age, went into alliance with this 
party, and became a popular agitator of fierce opposi- 
tion to the king. The leaders of the more strictly 
named Country Party were William Lord Russell and 
Algernon Sidney, the latter an avowed republican in 
belief. 

Shaftesbury's agitations and the pressure of the Coun- 
try Party forced the king to make peace with Holland 
Peace with m February, 1674, and there began then to be 
Holland. demands for war with France. At the same 
time, those who distrusted the king were divided in feel- 
ing, between their wish to carry England into the alli- 
ance against Louis XIV. and their fear as to the use 
that Charles might make, at home, of any army which 
they allowed him to raise. The French king's money 
was spent freely in England to keep the kingdom con- 
fused. Under agreement to prorogue Parliament when- 
ever it threatened war, Charles received an annual pen- 
sion, and enormous extra payments repeatedly, without 
shame ; while even the Country Party was more or less 
corrupted by Louis's gold. 

278. The So-called " Popish Plot." The vague fears 
that troubled the country were raised to a feverish heat, 
in 1678, by stories of a pretended " popish plot," started 
by a wretch named Titus Oates. Oates, a disreputa- 
ble clergyman, Protestant at first, but finally Catholic, 
claimed to have acquired knowledge, in certain foreign 



1678 i68o] RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 



457 



Jesuit houses, of a great plot on foot to murder the king, 
to set his brother James, Duke of York, on the throne, 
with the help of an army from France, and to suppress 
Protestantism in England by force. Shaftesbury, arch- 
agitator that he was, made the most of the Titu8 
excitement produced. Oates was the hero of 0ates - 
the hour, and other scoundrels of like kind made haste 
to join him with fresh lies, in order to get their share 
of so profitable 
a fame. Nobody 
dared to doubt 
that England was 
in deadly peril, 
from a gigantic 
conspiracy against 
Protestantism and 
the constitution, 
which nothing but 
the whole energy 
of the country 
could defeat. Two 
thousand suspect- 
ed Catholics were 
imprisoned ; every 
Catholic was or- 
dered to quit Lon- 
don, and the train-bands were called out. Then began 
a series of murderous trials, in which judges and juries 
abandoned themselves to the panic of the hour. Before 
the madness spent itself, near the end of 1680, seven 
priests and ten laymen had been put to death on the 
perjured testimony of Oates and his fellows ; many had 
languished long in prison, not a few had died. 

279. The Exclusion Bill. The king having no law- 




TITUS OATKS IN TIM I'll I'M', , 



45^ THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1679-1681 

ful children, his brother James, Duke of York, now 
known to be a zealous Catholic, stood next in succes- 
sion to the throne. His exclusion by law was fiercely 
demanded, and three Parliaments were elected, in 1679, 
1680, and 1 68 1, with that purpose in the minds of the 
Commons ; but each in turn was dissolved by the king 
to prevent the passing of the Exclusion Bill. 

Those who desired the exclusion of James were not 
agreed as to the successor to be named. By his first 
wife, Anne Hyde, James had two daughters, Mary (mar- 
ried to the Prince of Orange) and Anne, both Protest- 
ants ; and these would be the next heirs, after himself, 
unless his second wife, who was a Catholic princess from 
Italy, should give him a son. Many Protestants, urged 
on by Shaftesbury, contended that the latter possibility 
should be guarded against by excluding the whole family 
of the Duke of York. They wished to give the crown 
to a son of King Charles, who was not of lawful birth, 

but who might, they thought, by act of Parlia- 
Dukeof ment, be made the legitimate heir. This son, 

whom Charles had raised to high rank, as Duke 
of Monmouth, was generally well liked, but sober-minded 
people could see that an attempt to place him on the 
throne was certain to produce civil war. 

280. The Reaction. The dread of a new civil war 
which then arose in men's minds, while the frenzied be- 
lief in a "popish plot" was dying out, caused one of 
those quick and extreme reactions that are sure to follow 
false excitements of any kind. Opinion was rallied to 
the side of the king, against the promoters of the Exclu- 
sion Bill, and especially against the Monmouth faction, 
Whigs and with Shaftesbury at its head. The king's party 
Tones. now began to be called " Tories " and the ex- 
clusionists " Whigs," — meaningless party names that 



1681-1683] RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 459 

were kept in English politics for a hundred and fifty 
years. Whig was an epithet borrowed from the Scotch, 
who had applied it to certain fighting Covenanters in the 
west. The term Tory came from Ireland, where it signi- 
fied a wretched outlaw of the bogs. 

Soon the Tories were all-powerful ; the Whig party 
was broken by the king, who showed energy and ability 
for the first time in his reign. Shaftesbury had had the 
city of London at his back, with its magistracies and its 
juries ; but court influence won the mayor and the sheriff, 
packed the grand jury, and so shattered his party that 
he fled from a charge of high treason (October, 
1683), to Holland, where, three months later, shaftes- 
he died. Then, by high-handed proceedings in ury ' 
the Court of King's Bench, the charter of the city was 
declared to have been forfeited ; its political rights were 
annulled, and all its municipal offices were placed under 
royal control. Against many other cities the same action 
was taken, and, those cities being the centres of Whig 
opinion, the Whig party seemed to be hopelessly bound 
hand and foot. 

281. Russell, Sidney, and the Rye House Plot. The 
oppressive conduct of the king and the Tories gave rise 
to two projects of resistance among the Whigs, one by 
personal violence to the king, and one by a national ris- 
ing to restrain his hand. Some reckless followers of 
Shaftesbury engaged in the former, which was a plan 
to seize and perhaps murder the king and the Duke of 
York, as they passed a place called Rye House, on their 
way to Newmarket from London. When the two plots 
came to light, they were treated falsely as one, in order 
to make a blacker case against the leaders of the Whigs. 
Along with the worse plotters, Russell and Sidney were 
tried, condemned, and put to death. Against Sidney there 



460 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1660-1679 

was almost nothing proved, except his belief in republi- 
can government and in the right of the people to depose 
an unworthy king. That Russell had even sanctioned 
the larger project was unproved. 

282. The Habeas Corpus Act. Before the Whig 
party fell, it had established one of the most important 
guarantees of personal liberty that exist in English law, 
by the enactment of the famous Habeas Corpus Act, in 
the Parliament of 1679. It was an old principle of the 
English common law that untried prisoners must be 
brought on demand before a judge, for investigation of 
the grounds on which they were held ; but there were 
modes of evading or escaping the law, by conveying such 
prisoners out of reach, and by otherwise hindering the 
execution of the judge's writ. The act of 1679, which 
became the most cherished in the statute book, was a 
more thorough measure for enforcing the law. 

283. The State of Scotland. The state of Scotland 
was worse than that of England, and had been so through- 
out the reign of Charles. Cromwell's conquest appeared 
to have broken the old spirit of the nation for a time, 
and, in its joy at being delivered by the Restoration, it 
had permitted the king to do nearly what he willed. Its 
feeble Parliament abolished the Presbyterian system and 
established episcopacy at his command, with a certain 
toleration in worship, called the Indulgence, allowed to 
Presbyterian ministers who accepted it in due form. 
The stricter Covenanters * refused to listen to these " in- 
dulged " clergymen, and resorted to secret meetings in 
the mountains and on the wild moors, to hear preachers 

1 The name " Covenanters," given first to the signers of the 
National Covenant in 1638 (see section 219), was afterwards ap- 
plied to all who adhered to the old Kirk of Scotland — the Pres- 
byterian church. 



1669-16S5] RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 461 

of their own, who "would not bow the knee to Baal." 
For years there was no movement of rebellion among 
them, beyond the attempt to assemble in retired places 
for forbidden services of preaching and prayer. Yet 
they were hunted, shot, hanged, imprisoned, tortured, 
harried by wild Highlanders, like deadly enemies of the 
state. 

In 1669, the Earl of Lauderdale, one of King Charles's 
Cabal, was sent as royal commissioner to Scotland, and 
he established there a reign of corruption and cruelty 
that would have shamed a Turkish bashaw. Toward 
the end of his rule he was joined in the persecution of 
the Covenanters by a soldier of evil fame, John Graham 
of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee. It was then Claver . 
that the hunted people were driven into posi- house - 
tive rebellion by their maddening wrongs. In May, 1679, 
Claverhouse was defeated by the Covenanters at Drum- 
clog. A month later they were routed by Monmouth at 
Both well Bridge. Soon afterwards the direction of affairs 
in Scotland was given to the Duke of York, who contin- 
ued the merciless policy that Lauderdale had introduced. 

284. Death of Charles II. — Accession of James II. 
The practice in government which James had found in 
Scotland was now to be widened on a greater field ; for 
the three kingdoms of his brother were about to be put 
under his hand. The exclusionists had been thwarted ; 
nothing stood in his way to the throne ; and when 
Charles II., stricken with apoplexy, died suddenly on the 
6th of February, 1685, James II. became king. 

If no difference of religion had arisen between James 
and his subjects, he would still have been, probably, as 
impossible a king as his father, the first Charles, character 
He had the same despotic temper, with even of James - 
more doggedness of will and blindness to any view of 



462 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. 



[1685 



things except his own. "I will make no concessions," 
was his declaration, again and again. 

285. The Argyle and Monmouth Rebellions. A 
Parliament elected in April contained only forty members 
of the House of Commons whom the king himself would 

not, he declared, have 
chosen. Toryism was 
at its height when the 
reign began. There was 
nothing, then, at this 
time to encourage a 
movement of rebellion 
against King James ; 
but such a movement 
was foolishly under- 
taken by some of the 
accused Whigs who had 
fled to Holland in 1683. 
The Duke of Mon- 
mouth, one of the refu- 
gees, was persuaded that 
he had a claim to the crown which the greater part of 
the English people approved and would sustain. The 
Duke of Argyle, in exile from Scotland, was equally per- 
suaded that the Highlanders of his clan and the Cove- 
nanters of the Lowlands would rise if he appeared 
among them. Two expeditions were accordingly planned, 
one led by Argyle, to rouse Scotland ; the other by Mon- 
mouth, to raise England in revolt. 

Argyle landed in May, and was overtaken by disaster 
so quickly that his execution at Edinburgh occurred be- 
fore the close of the following month. The failure of 
Monmouth was equally swift. Landing at Lyme Regis, 
in Dorset, on the nth of June, he advanced into Somer- 




JAMES II, 






1685] RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 463 

set and was joined by some 5000 or 6000 farmers, pea- 
sants, and townspeople; but the gentry held aloof. His 
followers were entirely untrained and poorly armed, and 
when he undertook, on the 6th of July, to surprise a 
camp of regular royal troops on Sedgemoor, by 
a night attack, there was almost no chance of sedge- 
success. The repulse and rout were complete, 
the pursuit fierce, the butchery of helpless fugitives un- 
merciful ; few escaped. Monmouth, soon captured, in 
disguise, was executed at London only nine days after 
the fight. The battle of Sedgemoor was the last ever 
fought on English soil. 

286. The " Bloody Assizes " of Judge Jeffreys. 
Fugitives from the battle were hunted through the sur- 
rounding country for days by a Colonel Kirke ; but Kirke 
and his ruffianly soldiers were angels of mercy compared 
with the judge who came afterwards on the scene, to 
wreak vengeance in colder blood, under outraged forms 
of law, for the satisfaction of the implacable king. Be- 
fore he came to the throne, James had discovered this 
creature, Jeffreys ; had used influence to put him on the 
bench ; had since made him chief justice, and had pro- 
mised him the office of lord chancellor, the highest judicial 
seat in the realm. In September, Jeffreys was sent to 
conduct the trial of hundreds of wretched men, women, 
and young girls, who had embroidered colors for Mon- 
mouth, or given a night's shelter to fugitives from Sedge- 
moor, or lent countenance to the late rising in some way, 
— whether trifling or serious mattered little in Jeffreys's 
measuring of guilt. The story of those " Bloody As- 
sizes," as they are known in English history, cannot be 
told here. Of Jeffreys's victims, 320 were hanged and 
840 sent to slavery in the West Indies, which was a fate 
dreaded more than death. The only appeals that won 



464 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. L16S5-16S7 

mercy from either the king or his judge were those 
backed by great bribes. 

287. Parliament and. the King. While gratifying his 
malignity, James expected to terrorize the country and 
make it submissive to whatever he chose to do. He went 
forward now with bold steps on the path he had deter- 
mined to take : increased his army ; appointed Catholic 
officers to high commands, defiant of the Test Act ; de- 
manded from Parliament that not only the Test Act but 
the Habeas Corpus Act should be repealed ; and turned 
a deaf ear to his wisest Catholic counsellors, who saw that 
he was taking a ruinous course. The very Tories who 
had pleased him so well when Parliament met refused 
to tamper with the Habeas Corpus Act or the Test Act ; 
remonstrated in plain terms against his violation of the 
latter law and against his standing army, and gave him 
only half the supply of money that he asked. He pro- 
rogued the Parliament in disgust and never allowed it to 
meet again. 

288. The Dispensing Power. What Parliament would 
not do for the king was partly done by the judges of a 
packed court. By removing four, to make room for his 
own creatures, James secured a bench which decided 
that he had power to dispense with the requirements of 
the Test Act, and he began a startling exercise of that 
power. Catholics were appointed to the highest places 
in church and state ; Protestants in office near the king, 
even his own brothers-in-law, of the Hyde family, were 
dismissed on refusing to change their faith. In fact, 
though not in name, the Court of High Commission, 
abolished by act of Parliament in 1641, was audaciously 
revived, for the swift punishment of clergymen who 
preached against the doctrines of Rome. In all these 
violent and unconstitutional proceedings James acted 



16S7-16SS] RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 465 

against the wishes of the pope and against the judgment 
of his wisest Catholic counsellors in England. 

289. The Declaration of Indulgence. Thus far, 
James had shown no sign of a tolerant disposition towards 
any Protestant sect, except the Quakers, or Friends, 
whom he patronized in a singular way. But now he 
turned to the Presbyterians, Baptists, and other perse- 
cuted sects, with sudden professions of friendship and a 
zeal for toleration at large. On the 4th of April, 1687, 
he issued a general Declaration of Indulgence, suspend- 
ing all penal religious laws, against Protestants and Cath- 
olics alike. The relief was welcome to the persecuted 
sects, but the mode in which it came was not. Nor did 
the better class of English Catholics, apparently, approve 
the rash and high-handed way in which James had under- 
taken to liberate their church. 

His course excited as much political as religious alarm, 
increased by continual attacks on the constitution and on 
all the safeguards of law. The universities were 

........ r ■> ■ 1 1 • Theuni- 

assailed, their rights 01 election overthrown, their verities 
professors and fellows arbitrarily expelled. For 
the surer packing of a new Parliament, county and town 
officials all over the kingdom were turned out, to make 
way for tools of the court ; but even with that done the 
king dared not allow an election to be held. 

290. The Trial of the Seven Bishops. Blind to all 
the signs which warned him that his subjects would en- 
dure little more, James repeated his Declaration of In- 
dulgence in April, 1688, and ordered it to be read in 
every church. The Archbishop of Canterbury and six 
bishops then signed a petition to the king, asking him to 
withdraw a command which, the clergy could not obey 
without assenting to a violation of law. He rejected 
the petition with rage, and so he drove the clergy of a 



466 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1688 

church which, for years, had preached the extremest 
doctrine of submissiveness to kings, into an attitude of 
rebellion that refuted and cancelled forever, on that point, 
all that it had taught. There were few ministers in the 
whole kingdom who read the Declaration on the ap- 
pointed day, and the royal mandate was defied as much 
by the Nonconformists as by the clergy of the estab- 
lished church. 

The seven bishops who had petitioned him were marked 
by the king to receive punishment first. Their petition 
he claimed to be a seditious libel, and they were sent to 
the Tower, where they remained in confinement for a 
week, before being admitted to bail. A fortnight later 
they were tried in the packed Court of King's Bench, 
amid as great excitement as was ever known, and were 
acquitted by the jury, despite every effort to the con- 
trary of judges and king. 

291. Birth of an Heir to King James. The revolt of 
the clergy and the trial of the bishops had shown that the 
king had no longer any hold on the loyalty of the coun- 
try. Still, it might have borne with him till his death, 
in the expectation that his daughter, Mary, and her hus- 
band, the Prince of Orange, would peacefully succeed ; 
but just at this time, while the greatest agitation pre- 
vailed, that expectation was dispelled by the birth of a 
son to James. This broke the patience of the people 
down. They suspected fraud ; they were persuaded that 
some child, not the queen's, had been smuggled into the 
palace to be put forward as an heir to the crown. So 
England was now ripened for a revolution which seems 
to have been, for the moment, more unanimously de- 
manded and universally approved by the people than 
any other, perhaps, that ever occurred in the world. 

292. The Coming of William of Orange. On the 



i6SSj RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 467 

day of the acquittal of the bishops, June 30, 1688, an 
invitation, bearing great names, was sent to William of 
Orange, urging him to come and lead a national rising 
for the rescue of England from the peril it was in. He 
had long been in correspondence with the discontented ; 
he knew the state of affairs, and he accepted the invita- 
tion, with the entire concurrence of his wife. On the 
5th of November he landed with a small force at Torbay. 
England rose to welcome and support him, as it had 
promised to do. King James was deserted by his own 
courtiers, by his own soldiers, one by one, in rapid suc- 
cession, and finally by his daughter Anne. On the 12th 
of December he fled from London, and his enemies were 
careful to assist him in escaping to France. His blun- 
dering reign was at an end. 

293. Social State of the Restoration Period. There 
is no reason for believing that the corrupting influence 
of a vicious king and court in this period was widely 
spread. The nation continued to be extensively Puri- 
tanized, and more healthily so, perhaps, than when Puri- 
tanism was in fashion and in power. Even in London 
— in "the City," properly called so — the Puritan Sab- 
bath was quite strictly observed. 

Outside of the capital and its near neighborhood, there 
must have been scanty knowledge of public affairs, even 
among the better informed. Travel was difficult and 
dangerous ; the roads as bad as possible ; highwaymen 
numerous. But the small beginnings of a different state 
of things were being made : the beginnings of a postal 
system, of public coach lines that attempted speed, and 
of newspapers. In the reign of Charles II. the News . 
first attempt to collect news systematically for P a P ers - 
publication, by the employment of reporters (" spyes," 
the publisher called them), was made by one Roger 



468 



THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1660-1688 




JOHN BUNYAN. 



L' Estrange. In London, 
people generally resorted for 
news to the coffee houses, 
which became the most nota- 
ble institutions of the Eng- 
lish capital at this time. 

294. Literature and Sci- 
ence. That Milton, living 
through half the period of 
the Stuart Restoration, gave 
his greatest works to the 
world in that time ; that the 
years of Charles II. were 
the years in which the law of gravitation was discovered, 
by Isaac Newton, and the greatest English study of the 
Milton, human mind was made, by John Locke, are the 
Locke 11 ' three grand facts that shine out of the general 
Bunyan. meanness in this chapter of English history. 
The poetical literature of the day contains but one name 
to set with Milton's, and that is the name of Dryden, 
whose genius was crip- 
pled and whose poetry 
was stiffened in form 
and spirit by the utter 
poverty of inspiration 
that had fallen on the 
age. But nearer than 
Dryden to Milton, in 
imaginative genius, was 
John Bunyan, and, 
next after " Paradise 
Lost," the prose alle- 
gorical drama of "The 
Pilgrim's Progress," sir isaac newton. 




1660-1685] RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 469 

which the Puritan tinker wrote in Bedford jail, is the 
highest literary product of the time. The drama of the 
restored theatres was debased to the last degree. A 
noble prose came from the pulpit and from the religious 
writers of the period, but little of lasting worth from any 
secular source. 

Towards Science rather than towards Letters the in- 
tellectual interest of the age was drawn. It was 
really the age of full birth for Science, — the 
age in which natural phenomena began to win the gen- 
eral attention of inquiring minds. 

295. Industry. — Commerce. — Colonization. The 
persecution of Hugue- 
nots and the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes, 
in France, drove thou- 
sands of the most skil- 
ful French workmen in 
many arts and trades 
to England, during the 
later years of Charles 
II. and the reign of 
James. Their coming 
was favorable to a large 
number of English in- 

... . JOHN LOCKE. 

dustnes ; to silk and 

linen weaving especially, but also to the manufacture of 

paper, glass, clocks, surgical instruments, and the like. 

The Commonwealth policy of the Navigation Act was 
maintained, but with changes (1663 and 1672) which 
made it as hostile to the English colonies in The Navi- 
America as it was to foreign rivals in the ocean nation Act. 
carrying trade. The colonists were allowed to import 
nothing from any country except England, and trade 




470 THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION. [1660-1685 

between one colony and another was required to pass 
through an English port or else to pay a heavy tax. 
The avowed object was to keep the colonies "in a firmer 
dependence ; " but the effect was to plant the seeds of a 
desire for independence, which grew from that time. 

As stated already (see section 270), the Dutch colony of 
New Netherlands was acquired by conquest in 1664, con- 
firmed by treaty in 1674, and became New York. New 
Jersey was included in the cession of Dutch rights, and, 
after some changes of ownership, passed into the posses- 
sion of proprietors, mostly Quakers, of whom William 
Penn was one. In 1681, the great province of Pennsyl- 
vania was granted to Penn, in satisfaction of a debt which 
the English crown owed to his father, Admiral Penn. 
Eifty years earlier (1632), the neighboring province of 
Maryland had been granted by Charles I. to trie Catholic 
Lord Baltimore. In 1663, the second Charles had made 
a great grant of territory south of Virginia, extending to 
Florida, to a company of his courtiers, including General 
Monk (Duke of Albemarle), Clarendon, and Shaftesbury, 
who named it Carolina in honor of the" king. The line 
of English colonies, having some organized form, on the 
Atlantic coast, was now nearly complete. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

267. Charles II. 

Topics. 

1. His character. 

2. First acts of vengeance. 
Reference. — Green, 629-632. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What two of these regicides are 
connected with the history of America ? (2.) What does the 
fact that the people bore patiently with Charles's prosecution of 
his revenge in the case of the regicides and of Cromwell and Ire- 
ton show of the conditions on which the Restoration was effected ? 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 47 1 

(3.) To what degree could the Restoration be considered a reli- 
gious movement? 

268. The Vengeance of the Church. 
Topics. 

1. The king's desire and the hope of the Presbyterians. 

2. Reaction against Presbyterianism. 

3. The Corporation Act and the Act of Uniformity. 

4. The king's attempt to give religious freedom. 

5. The Conventicle and the Five Mile acts. 
Reference. — Green, 619-625. 

Research Questions. — (1.) If Presbyterians were in charge of 
the municipal elections, how would the Corporation Act affect the 
parliamentary majority. (2.) How would the feeling of low 
churchmen interfere to defeat the king's aim ? (3.) If the king 
could not accomplish his aim through religious feeling, what 
other sentiment could he appeal to? (Ransome, 188, 189.) 

269. The Cavalier Parliament and the King. 
Topics. 

1. Early and later attitudes of the Cavaliers in Parliament. 

2. Sale of Dunkirk. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 726, 727. 

270. War with the Dutch. 
Topics. 

1. Causes of the war and seizure of New Netherlands. 

2. Charles's use of the grant of Parliament. 

3. The navy and De Ruyter's victory. 

4. Reaction against the king and the fall of Clarendon. 
Reference. — Bright, ii. 735, 736. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Whom did Charles II. marry? 
(Gardiner, ii. 587.) (2.) What possession did she bring to Charles ? 
(3.) Locate this place on the map. (4.) How does the colony 
which has grown up from this compare in importance with other 
foreign possessions of Great Britain? (5.) How did the Dutch 
view the English possession of this colony? (6.) Name the pos- 
sessions which the Dutch hold in that vicinity to-day. (7.) How 
does the possession of India influence England in European poli- 
tics to-day ? 



472 RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 

271. The Plague and the Great Fire. 
Topics. 

i. Ravages of the plague. 

2. Effect of the fire. 
References. — Colby, 205-208; Gardiner, ii. 590-592. The 

plague in London : Bright, ii. 732 ; Traill, iv. 465-470 ; Defoe, 

Journal of the Plague. 

272. The Cabal. 
Topics. 

1. Origin of the name. 

2. Germ of the English Cabinet. 

Reference. — Bright, ii. 739. Changes in the Privy Council : 
Ransome, 177, 178; H.Taylor, ii. 367-369. 

273. The Triple Allianc'e. 
Topic. 

1. Threatening power of France, and appeal of the Dutch. 
Reference. — Green, 637, 638. 

274. Charles as a Hireling of Louis. 

Topic. 

1. Conditions of the king's secret treaty with France. 

Reference. — Bright, ii. 741, 74 2 - 

Research Questions. — (1.) When does bribery as a political 
force appear? (Bright, ii. 747, 748, and Gardiner, ii. 611.) (2.) 
Was an alliance with France the right one for England to make 
at this time? (3.) In what way had the aspect of continental 
politics changed. 

275. The Declaration of Indulgence. 

Topics. 

1. Attack on the Dutch and the Indulgence. 

2. The repeal of the Indulgence. 
Reference. — Green, 639, 640. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What religious party had now a 
majority of the country against it? (2.) When the dissenters 
joined with churchmen to oppose the Indulgence, what treat- 
ment did they bring upon themselves? (3.) What is an estab- 
lished church? (4.) Are dissenters compelled to contribute to its 
support if they do not attend it ? (5.) Does that seem a fair 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 473 

arrangement ? (6.) On what terms did Parliament now begin to 
grant supplies ? (Bright, ii. 737.) (7.) Where did the king nat- 
urally turn when he wanted to borrow ? (8.) Out of what sources 
of income did the king expect to meet this debt ? (9.) Was it then, 
in fact, the king's debt or the country's debt? (10.) To whom do 
we ascribe the beginning of this debt in England ? (Taswell- 
Langmead, 620.) 

276. The Test Act. sL 
Topics. 

1. Religion of the king and his brother. 

2. Parliament passes the Test Act. 
Reference. — Green, 641. 

277. The Country Party. 

Topics. 

1. Discovery of the secret treaty of Dover. 

2. Shaftesbury and the Country party. 

3. Peace with Holland. 

4. Corrupting influence of the French king's money. 
Reference. — Green, 645-649. 

278. The So-called " Popish Plot." 
Topics. 

1. Perjured testimony of Titus Oates and others. 

2. Popular fear and attack on the Catholics. 
Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 21-24. 

279. The Exclusion Bill. 
Topics. 

1. Objection to James as Charles's heir. 

2. Disagreement over another successor. 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 617. 

280. The Reaction. 
Topics. 

1. Rise of Whigs and Tories. 

2. Fall of Shaftesbury. 

3. Forfeiture of the London and other charters. 
References. — Gardiner, ii. 620; Green, 657; Hale, Fall of the 

Stuarts, 33-36; Montague, 141; Ransome, 185, 186; Macaulav. 
i. 200. 



474 RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 

Research Questions. — (i.) When did the name "trimmer" 
come into play in English politics? (Gardiner, ii. 618.) (2.) 
What does it mean ? (3.) What does the fall of one after the 
other of the king's ministers show of the struggle between king 
and Parliament ? 

^ 281. Russell, Sidney, and the Rye House Plot. 
Topics. 

1. Two Whig projects of resistance. 

2. Treatment of those engaged in the Rye House Plot. 
Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 60-66. 

282. The Habeas Corpus Act. 
Topic. 

1. Its importance and former enforcement. 
References. — Montague, 142, 143; Bright, ii. 753; Ransome, 

184; Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 32; H. Taylor, ii. 380-383; 

Taswell-Langmead, 623, 627. 

283. The State of Scotland. 
Topics. 

1. Recstablishment of Episcopacy in Scotland. 

2. Persecution of Covenanters by Lauderdale and Claverhouse. 

3. Battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge. 
3. The Duke of York in Scotland. 

Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 37-42. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Had the union of kingdoms brought 
about by Cromwell remained in force? (Green, 714.) (2.) What 
was the condition in Ireland? (Gardiner, ii. 595.) 

284. Death of Charles II. — Accession of James II. 
Topics. 

1. Change in rulers. 

2. Character of James. 

Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 68-70. 

285. The Argyle and Monmouth Rebellions. 

Topics. 

1. Power of Toryism and outbreak of the rebellion. 

2. Death of Argyle and the battle of Sedgemoor. 
Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 88-101. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 475 

286. The " Bloody Assizes " of Judge Jeffreys. 
Topics. 

i. Kirke and Jeffreys. 

2. The " Bloody Assizes." 
References. — Green, 665, 666 ;. Colby, 214-217. 

VJ 287. The Parliament and the King. 
Topics. 

1. The king's ruinous course. 

2. Tory opposition in Parliament. 
Reference. — Ransome, 184- 191. 

288. The Dispensing Power. 
Topics. 

1. The king packs the bench and annuls the Test Act. 

2. Revival of the Court of High Commission. 
4. Obstinacy and lack of wisdom in James. 

Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 107-110. 

289. The Declaration of Indulgence. 
Topics. 

1. The king's attitude toward Protestant sects. 

2. Objection to Declaration and alarm at the king's course. 
Reference. — Montague, 145. 

290. The Trial of the Seven Bishops. 
Topics. 

1. Repetition of the Indulgence and petition of the bishops. 

2. Arrest and trial of the bishops. 
Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 125-129. 

291. Birth of an Heir to King James. 
Topics. 

1. Effect of the birth of an heir. 

2. Suspicion of fraud and its results. 
Reference. — Gardiner, ii. 643. 

292. The Coming of William of Orange. 
Topic. 

1. Invitation to William and end of James's reign. 
Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 134-146. 



476 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 



293. Social State of the Restoration Period. 
Topics. 

i. Healthy growth of Puritanism. 

2. Growth of towns and condition of highways. 

3. Gathering of news and coffee-houses. 

References. — Gardiner, ii. 628-634. Coffee-house of the period : 
Colby, 208-212; Bright, ii. 747; Gardiner, ii. 630; Macaulay, i. 
286-290. 

294. Literature and Science. 
Topics. 

1. Literature; Milton, Dryden, Bunyan, and Locke. 

2. Science ; Sir Isaac Newton. 

References. — Traill, iv. 422-438. The Royal Society : Gardi- 
ner, ii. 598; Guest, 487, 488; Green, 609-611 ; Macaulay, i. 317- 
322 ; Traill, iv. 286, 403, 404, 462. 

295. Industry. — Commerce. — Colonization. 
Topics. 

1. Huguenot refugees. 

2. The Navigation Act and the colonies. 

3. New York, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas. 
References. — Bright, ii. 790-804. Trade and finance: Bright, 

ii. 792-800; Gibbins, 129-138; Traill, i v. 445-460. Agriculture 
in the seventeenth century: Cunningham and McArthur, 182- 
185; Gibbins, 108-120; Rogers, 452-467; Bright, ii. 793, 794; 
Traill, iv. 11 5-1 21, 439-445 ; Macaulay, i. 242-246. 



LINEAGE OF THE STEWART OR STUART SOVEREIGNS OF 

SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND, FROM MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

Charles II., _ 
1 660- 1 685. 

Mary," 

married 

William II., 

Prince of 

Orange. 



Mary, 

Queen of Scots, 

married 

Henry, 
Lord Darnley. 



James I., 
1603- 1625, 
of England 

(being 

lames VI. 

of Scotland), 



I Charles I., 
1623-1649, 

{ married 

I Henrietta Maria 

( of France. 



James II., 

1CS5-168S, 

married 

Anne Hyde. 



William of 
Orange, 

(afterward 
William III. 
of England). 

Mary, 

1689-1694, 

married 

William III., 

{of Orange), 

1689-1702. 

Anne, 
1702-1714. 



SURVEY OF GENERAL HISTORY. 

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

Early Characteristics. The glow and brilliancy of intellec- 
tual life in the seventeenth century was followed by a time of 
chill and dulness, which lasted, in the eighteenth century, 
through its early and middle years. There seemed to be 
some deadening of spirit in the world, — some loss of warmth 
and earnestness in feeling, — some general weakening of the 
beliefs that inspire and the hopes that uplift. Voltaire, who 
treated everything with a mocking wit, appeared to be the 
representative genius of the age. Poetry was stiffened into 
the cold forms of verse that we find in the rhymed essays of 
Pope, and the nobler arts in general were touched by the 
same pervading chill. 

Scientific studies were carried forward diligently with eye 
and hand, observing and experimenting; astronomers watched 
the heavens, mapped the stars, gathered facts industriously ; 
geology, chemistry, and botany were really founded as true 
sciences, and the great field of electrical discovery was 
opened up. There was notable progress, indeed, along 
many lines of advance in knowledge ; but it was seldom 
lighted, as it had been before and would be again, by flashes 
of new scientific thought. 

Later Characteristics. But genial influences of some kind 
were working under the cold surface of that peculiar age to 
stir its blood. Their first and finest effect appeared in many 
signs of a new growth of fellow feeling among men, — a 
quickened attentiveness to sufferings and wrongs, — a deep- 
ened sense of duty to humanity at large. Many of the 
noblest of benevolent movements were begun before the 



478 GENERAL HISTORY. 

eighteenth century closed : the condemnation of slavery and 
the slave trade, for example ; the reforming of barbarous pris- 
ons ; the better treatment of the insane ; the teaching of the 
deaf and dumb. The growth of fellow feeling which gave 
these kindly proofs was being carried, at the same time, into 
political ideas. Notions of freedom and equal rights, which 
had been, for two centuries and a half, beaten down in the 
minds of every people except the English, Dutch, and Swiss, 
began to revive. 

Under such generous influences, poetry was once more in- 
spired. Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller gave Germany, at last, 
its high place in the choir of song. Cowper and Burns put 
life and natural feeling again into English verse. Music was 
raised to a higher place among the great arts. All literature 
took on a warmer tone, and all philosophy was led, by Im- 
manuel Kant, into loftier regions of thought. 

Then began that wonderful refitting and refurnishing of 
the earth, by mechanical invention and scientific discovery, 
which has made it a habitation for mankind so very different 
from that which our ancestors knew (see Survey, Nineteenth 
Century). 

T7ie Last Years of Louis XIV, Europe was still harassed, 
in the first years of the century, by the unscrupulous ambi- 
tions of Louis XIV. of France. Despite his solemn renun- 
ciation, for himself, his wife, and all their descendants, of all 
claim to the Spanish crown (see page 345), he had persuaded 
the childless and half imbecile King of Spain, Charles II., to 
bequeath the whole Spanish dominion to one of Louis's 
grandsons, who might inherit, likewise, the crown of France. 
Charles died in 1700; his bequest was accepted, and the 
young French prince was sent to take possession of the 
Spanish throne. 

With great difficulty, after much discouragement, William 
of Orange formed a new Grand Alliance, of England, Hol- 
land, Austria, and most of the German states, to oppose this 
practical union of Spain with France. The " War of the 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 479 

Spanish Succession," which opened then, raged in the Neth- 
erlands, -France, Spain, Germany, Italy, America, and on the 
ocean, for twelve years (1702-17 14). William of Orange 
died just as it began, but two great soldiers, Marlborough 
and Prince Eugene of Savoy, who commanded the armies of 
the allies, won- a series of extraordinary victories, which 
stripped its tinsel glories from the reign of Louis XIV., 
broke the military prestige of France, and mortally weakened 
Spain. By the treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt, in 17 13 and 
1 7 14, France yielded Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Hud- 
son's Bay to England; Spain gave up Gibraltar and Minorca 
to the English, Naples, Milan, Mantua, Sardinia, and most 
of the Spanish Netherlands to Austria, Sicily to the Duke of 
Savoy, with the title of king, and certain strong forts on the 
Flemish frontier to the Dutch. The French intruder, Philip 
V., kept his throne, however, and founded a Bourbon line of 
Spanish kings. 

In 17 15,, Louis XIV. died, leaving a kingdom that had rea- 
son to remember him with hate. ' 

The Wars of Charles XII of Sweden. Another war was 
raging meantime in the north and east. Peter the Great of 
Russia had conspired with the kings of Poland and Denmark 
to take territory from a young king of Sweden, Charles XII., 
who came to the throne in 1697. They thought him weak 
and frivolous ; they were quickly undeceived. Instead of 
attacking they were attacked, and it was in their dominions, 
not his, that the war was fought for nine years (1 700-1 709). 
Charles was ruined at last by the mistake which Napoleon 
repeated a hundred years later, — leading his army into the 
depths of Russia and wearing it out in a useless march. He 
was killed in 17 18. 

Alliance against Spain. Before this happened, the powers 
of the west were again in arms, with a strange shifting of 
sides. The Bourbon Philip V. of Spain had quarrelled al- 
ready with his royal relatives of France, over schemes into 
which he was drawn by a reckless minister, Alberoni, and by 



480 GENERAL HISTORY. 

his queen, Elizabeth Farnese. The result was an alliance of 
France with England, Holland, and Austria, in a war which 
drove Alberoni from power and did fresh injury to Spain. 
As one consequence of the war, the Duke of Savoy ex- 
changed Sicily for Sardinia, and bore the title of King of 
Sardinia from that time. 

The War of the Polish Succession. A few years of peace 
followed the Spanish disturbance, and then the disputed elec- 
tion of a king of Poland gave rise to another war (1733). 
France pressed one candidate, Austria and Russia another, 
and they fought over the result, Spain and Sardinia being 
joined with France. This gave the occasion for what is 
known as the " First Family Compact " of the Bourbon kings 
of France and Spain. Austria suffered heavily in the war, 
losing Naples and Sicily (" the Two Sicilies," so called), 
which were conferred on the Spanish king's younger son. 
Thus a third Bourbon monarchy arose. 

The War of Jenkins's Ear. Out of the Bourbon Family 
Compact came feelings and provocations which led to a petty 
war between England and Spain (1739), commonly spoken of 
as "the War of Jenkins's Ear" (see section 329), which 
soon merged itself in the great conflict described next below. 

The War of the Austrian Succession. The emperor, 
Charles VI., who died in 1740, left no son, but willed his he- 
reditary sovereignty, as Archduke of Austria, King of Hun- 
gary, etc., to his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa. The will 
had been legally sanctioned by the principalities concerned, 
and it had been solemnly guaranteed by the sovereigns of 
almost every European state ; yet Charles was hardly buried 
before half the guarantors of that Pragmatic Sanction, as it 
was called, were making combinations to seize some part or 
the whole of the dominions he had bequeathed. Frederick 
II. of Prussia (called " the Great "), the kings of Spain, 
France, and Sardinia, the electors of Bavaria and Saxony, 
were all in the attack, either separately or together ; England 
and Holland, alone, among the important powers, supported 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 481 

Maria Theresa in her rights. Frederick of Prussia tore Sile- 
sia and Glatz from her possession ; the King of Spain ob- 
tained spoils to the extent of three Italian duchies, and the 
King of Sardinia was bought over to the Austrian side by a 
small territorial bribe. France, Bavaria, and Saxony suffered 
heavily in the war, and were glad to end it, by the Treaty of 
Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, with no gain to themselves. 

Prussia, and the Seven Years' 1 War. The War of the Aus- 
trian Succession was really profitable to but one of the par- 
ties engaged in it, and that was the King of Prussia. Prussia 
(with Brandenburg united to it — see page 344) had been 
raised from a duchy to a kingdom in 1700, by decree of the 
emperor, Leopold I. Frederick the Great was the third of 
its kings. Of his remarkable ability there is no question, 
and it was soon sharply proved. He had roused an impla- 
cable enemy in Maria Theresa, and she worked unceasingly, 
after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, to make a combination 
against him. Russia and Saxony were first brought secretly 
into her scheme ; then, when England and France came to 
blows in America (see sections 336, 337), and the former went 
into alliance with Frederick, she drew France into her league. 
As her combination finally shaped itself, it embraced Austria, 
France, Russia, Sweden, Poland, Saxony, and the Palatinate, 
with Spain added at the last. Against this appalling league 
of enemies, bent on his destruction, the King of Prussia de- 
fended himself, with little more than English help, for seven 
years (1756-1762), and gave up not one foot of the soil that 
he claimed ; while England, his ally, came out of that terri- 
ble Seven Years' War with enormous colonial conquests from 
France and Spain (see sections 338-340). 

Germany. The treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg, 1763, 
which ended the Seven Years' War, were followed by a gen- 
erally peaceful period in Germany of about thirty years, dur- 
ing which the people of that much troubled, much divided, 
much oppressed country, found the first fair opportunity that 
had been given them to waken and exercise their genius in 
letters, science, and art. 



482 GENERAL HISTORY. 

The Partition of Poland. It was in this period, however, 
that the destruction of the Polish nation was accomplished, 
by Frederick and Joseph, in conspiracy with the Russian em- 
press, Catherine II. 

This was done by three successive partitions, in 1772, 
1793, and 1795. The first partition had so sobering an 
effect on the Polish nobles that they consented, in 1791, to 
the adoption of a new constitution, which went far in many 
directions towards popular rights ; but the movement was 
too late. It only provoked fresh attacks, and Poland, as a 
nation, disappeared. 

Catherine II of Russia. Catherine II., then empress of 
Russia, was a German princess, who had mounted the throne 
of her husband, the late Tsar, after causing his deposition 
and death. A woman of great ability, of strong will, and of 
no moral principle, her reign is the most notable in Russian 
history except that of Peter the Great. Besides adding the 
larger part of Poland to the empire, she subjugated the Tar- 
tars of the Crimea and made extensive conquests from the 
Turks. She did more than even Peter to bring Russia into 
closer relations with western Europe and under the influence 
of its ideas and its arts. 

France and the French Revolution. In France, the impos- 
ing monarchy that Louis XIV. had built, and which crushed 
a miserable people, kept up its delusive show throughout the 
long reign (17 15-17 74) of his successor, Louis XV.; but the 
crashing fall of it came before the century was at an end. 
Apparently the people were suffering less from their dreadful 
misgovernment in the last half of the century than they had 
been in the first ; but their consciousness of it had increased. 
New ideas of political right had been planted in their minds, 
and the founding, in America, of the republic of the United 
States (1776-1783) had a powerful effect in stimulating the 
growth of such ideas. Thus it happened that the Bourbon 
monarchy became unendurable to them after it had passed 
its worst state, and they wreaked vengeance for its oppres- 
sions on the least oppressive of its kings. 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 483 

In 1788, the king, Louis XVI., yielded to demands for a 
meeting of the States-General, the ancient national legislature 
of France, which had not been assembled since the year 
161 4. When it met, in 1789, the Third Estate, or Commons, 
grasped control ; the king's authority vanished ; a storm of 
revolution broke out, and rising mobs of peasants and work- 
men began to drive the oppressive nobility to flight. No 
training had prepared the French people for a moderate or 
prudent use of the power thus suddenly seized. In destroy- 
ing the old wrongs they knew not where to stop, or how to 
construct a free government in the place of the despotism 
they had overthrown. The fiercest and wildest spirits among 
them (organized in what came to be called Jacobin Clubs) 
took the lead. A constitutional monarchy, agreed to in 
1791, was cast down a year later, and the king was put to 
death. His queen, Marie Antoinette, followed him to the 
guillotine in 1793. Then followed the awful period known 
as the " Reign of Terror," during which thousands of per- 
sons suspected of hostility to the revolution were put to 
death. At last, the Jacobin leaders began to destroy one 
another, and when Robespierre, the most influential among 
them, fell (July, 1794), the Reign of Terror came to an end. 

Meantime the Revolutionists had plunged France into war 
with its neighbors on every side, undertaking to break mo- 
narchical governments down. Their wars had been carried 
on with astonishing success ; but far greater successes came 
after the downfall of the Terrorists, when Napoleon Bona- 
parte rose to command. Two years (1796-97) of dazzling 
victory over the Austrians in Italy gave Napoleon such a 
mastery of the French army, and such a hold on the admira- 
tion of the people that he was able (1799), to overthrow the 
government then in power, and to set up a new one, with 
himself, as First Consul, at its head. Then began, as the 
eighteenth century closed, the long struggle of Europe 
against the devouring ambition of this unscrupulous master 
of France. 



THE PERIOD OF ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
1688-1820. 



CHAPTER XX. 

the settlement of a constitutional monarchy. 

William and Mary. — Anne. 1688-17 14. 

296. Pilling the Vacant Throne. It is not easy to 
see how the Tories and Whigs, who jointly brought Wil- 
liam of Orange to England, could ever have agreed as to 
what should be done after he came, if James had not, 
fortunately, cleared most of the difficulties of agreement 
away, by his opportune flight to France. If he had 
stayed in England, it could hardly have been possible 
to deprive him, in Tory eyes and Tory thought, of the 
sacred character and authority of a king. By quitting 
it, he furnished the ground for a plausible theory, which 
many Tories were willing to accept, that he had abdi- 
cated the throne. Then came anxious debate as to the 
mode in which the vacant throne should be filled. In 
the end (February 13, 1689), William and Mary were 
declared to be jointly king and queen ; but full regal 
power was conferred on the former, to be exercised in 
the name of both. Thus the ancient right of the Eng- 
lish people to regulate the hereditary succession of royal- 
born persons in their monarchy was exercised once more, 
and established for all time. 

297. The Declaration of Rights and the Bill of 



1689] A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 485 

Rights. At the same time, in the same instrument, a 
broad declaration of the principles of constitutional gov- 
ernment, which the late kings had obstinately violated, 
was made by Parliament and accepted by the new sover- 
eigns, " so that the right of the king to his crown and of 
the people to their liberties might rest upon one and the 
same title-deed." In the following October, Parliament 
embodied the Declaration in a Bill of Rights, which 
takes its place with Magna Carta and the Petition of 
Right, in forming what has been called " the legal con- 
stitutional code " of English government. 

The Bill of Rights extinguished, forever, the claim of 
authority in the crown, without consent of Parliament, 
to suspend or to dispense with any law, or to levy money 
in any manner, or to interfere with the right B mof 
of petition, or to raise or keep a standing army Rl & ht8 - 
within the kingdom in time of peace. It established 
lastingly the freedom of parliamentary elections, the free- 
dom of speech and action in Parliament, and the fre- 
quency of its meetings "for the amending, strengthening 
and preserving of the laws." It prohibited "cruel and 
unusual punishments," excessive fines and excessive bail. 
It secured to "subjects which are Protestants" (not to 
Catholics) the right to " have arms for their defence." 
It named the queen's sister, Princess Anne, as the suc- 
cessor to King William and Queen Mary, if the latter 
should leave no children, and it excluded from the throne 
every person belonging to the Roman church, or married 
to one in that church. 

298. The Deeper Effects of the Revolution. The 
immense importance, however, of the political revolution 
of 1688 is not found in the enactments of constitutional 
law to which it led, so much as in the changed state of 
mind that it forced upon the people. That obstinate 



486 



ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 



[1689 



and fatal superstition of loyalty which had looked upon 
a king as a sacred personage, divinely gifted with an 
authority which none could resist without sin, had no 
root left in the English mind. The church, which 
planted' that superstition, had now helped to tear it away. 
299. The Tory Reaction. — The Jacobites. Never- 
theless, the " glorious revolution " was followed by a mean 
reaction of sentiment, which went to even dangerous 
lengths. Because the new king was not gracious in man- 
ners ; because he was 
grave and silent ; be- 
cause he was a for- 
eigner and spoke Eng- 
lish badly ; because he 
was a statesman with 
broad views, who stud- 
ied the common inter- 
ests of the two coun- 
tries that he ruled, in 
their relation to affairs 
at large ; because he 
would not be the mere 
chief of a party, but 
tried to be a national 
king ; and, also, be- 
cause he did undoubt- 
edly lavish too many 
favors on Dutch fol- 
lowers and friends, there was a shamefully large number 
of men in both church and state who soon forgot the 
intolerable conduct of James and were ready to bring the 
old king back. If experience had taught anything to 
the latter, it seems possible that the Tory reaction would 
have gone far enough to restore him to the throne. But, 




WILLIAM III. 



1689] A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 487 

fortunately, every expression that came from him helped 
to discourage the thought of his return. Those who con- 
tinued to regard him as the rightful king, and his son 
as the rightful heir to the crown, were called Jacobites, 
from the Latin form of the name of James. 

300. The Mutiny Act. William was harassed through- 
out his reign by jealousies and treacheries, against which 
no common resolution or ability could have contended 
with even moderate success. A mutinous movement in 
the army, which occurred in March, 1689, and which 
was vigorously checked, gave rise to a device whereby 
the maintenance of a necessary standing army without 
danger to popular freedom was made practicable for the 
first time. Martial law and courts-martial, which are 
necessary to military discipline, were authorized for a 
period of six months only. At the expiration of the act 
it was renewed for a year, and the same practice has 
continued until the present day. Only from year to ' 
year has the crown been given power to govern and con- 
trol an armed force. This created a new necessity for 
the annual summoning of Parliament, and an added safe- 
guard of constitutional government was secured. 

301. The Toleration Act. There was never before, 
and probably never afterwards, so much friendliness be- 
tween the clergy of the established church and the 
Nonconformists as appeared in the early days of the 
Revolution, which they had joined hands in bringing 
about. It soon vanished, but it lingered long enough 
to smooth the passage of an act which tolerated non- 
conformity in a peculiarly English way. The new law 
repealed none of the old statutes, requiring attendance 
at the services of the church of England and prohibiting 
other religious assemblies, but it stopped magistrates 
from applying them to Protestants who took the oaths 



488 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1689 

of allegiance and supremacy ; and it allowed dissenting 
ministers to omit several of the articles of the church of 
England from the affirmation of their belief. Catholics, 
it will be seen, had no share in the relief that was given 
by the so-called Toleration Act. It embodied, in reality, 
no principle of religious toleration, but could not have 
been passed if tolerant ideas had not gained ground. 

302. The Non-Jurors. Many of the clergy were found 
to be still looking reverently upon James as the lawful 
king, and Parliament thought it necessary, therefore, to 
require an oath of fealty to King William and Queen 
Mary from every person holding office or place in church 
or state. About 400 of the clergy, including the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury and six bishops, refused the oath 
and were displaced. These, known as Non-Jurors, formed 
a distinct body, which claimed to be the true church of 
England, and they and their successors, for more than a 
century, maintained that claim. 

303. The Revolution in Scotland. Revolutionary 
events in Scotland had kept pace with those in England, 
but more disorder attended them and more resistance was 
made. Many of the clergymen of the Episcopal church 
were riotously driven ("rabbled," as the Scotch termed 
it) from their parishes at once, by the long persecuted 
Covenanters ; and one of the first acts of the Scottish 
Estates, when called together, was to abolish episcopacy 
and restore the Presbyterian church. James was de- 
clared, not to have abdicated the throne, but to have 
forfeited it, and William and Mary were chosen to be 
jointly king and queen. 

Viscount Dundee, the " bloody Claverhouse," went into 
the Highlands, as Montrose had done half a century 
before, and stirred up certain of the clans. A veteran 
force sent against him, under General Mackay, was routed 



16S9-1692] A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 489 

with great slaughter at Killiecrankie (July 27) ; but Dun- 
dee fell in the fight, and his Highland host 
melted away. There was no general submission, house 
however, until two years later, when the chiefs sam ' 
were offered pardon and a payment of money if they 
took the oath of allegiance to William and Mary before 
the 1st of January, 1692. All accepted the terms and 
were duly sworn ; but one among them, Macdonald of 
Glencoe, mistook the official to whom his submission 
should be made, and could not correct his mis- Massacre 
take until the day of grace was passed. He of Glencoe - 
had powerful enemies, who probably misrepresented the 
facts of his delinquency to the king. By some means, at 
all events, they obtained authority to proceed against 
Macdonald and his clan as rebels, and used this as the 
warrant for a treacherous and cowardly deed. The Mas- 
sacre of Glencoe, in which men and boys and even women 
were shot down at midnight, by soldiers whom they had 
entertained for a fortnight as friends, is one of the hor- 
rors of Scottish history, and a blot on William's reign. 

304. The Orange Conquest of Ireland. King James, 
while he reigned, had undone the old wrong of religious 
oppression in Irish government by putting a new form 
of the same wrong in its place. In other words, he had 
stripped the Protestant Anglo-Irish population of their 
oppressive power, and transferred it, without any* check, 
to the Catholic Celts. The latter, when the English 
revolution occurred, were in full possession of a formid- 
able army, filled the offices of the Irish government, 
occupied the benches of the courts, and controlled the 
corporations of even the Protestant towns. The viceroy, 
Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, who accomplished 
the change, was a man sure to give it the worst possible 
effect. 



49° ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1689 

The Irish took arms, nominally for King James, but in 
reality for themselves, making use of a fair opportunity 
The Irish to break the English yoke. A tumultuous ris- 
rising. m g occurre d, in which almost the last traces 
of order in the country disappeared. Protestant and 
English residents fled by thousands into England or 
to the districts in the north where some defence might 
be made. Londonderry and Enniskillen became the 
two rallying points of such resistance as the Protestants 
of Ulster could undertake. 

In March, 1689, James arrived in Ireland, with a liberal 
equipment of ships, money, arms, and officers for his Irish 
troops, provided by his friend and ally, the King of France. 
His aim was to use Ireland for the recovery of England ; 
James's Dut tne a ^ m °f n ^ s supporters there was to win 
attempt. independence for the Irish crown. The latter 
carried things their own way. They extorted the king's 
consent to sweeping measures of confiscation and ven- 
geance, which hardened English and Scottish hostility 
to him and made his return to the lost British thrones 
more than ever an impossible event. 

In April, James led a numerous army to attack London- 
derry (known commonly by its older name of Derry), 
which was scantily provisioned and poorly prepared for 
the siege that its people determined to endure. Lundy, 
the military governor of the town, proved treacherous 
or faint-hearted, and wished to surrender ; two regiments 
sent from England to support him thought the place could 
not be defended, and went back ; but the stout-hearted 
men of Derry organized their own defence and would not 
Siege of gi ye U P- When their store of wholesome food 
Derry. was consumed, they ate the flesh and even the 
skins of horses and dogs. Many died of starvation and 
of the fevers that famine breeds. For weeks they saw 



1689-1691] A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 491 

in the distance an idle fleet that King William had sent 
to their relief, but which did not attempt to break the 
Irish blockade. At last, on the 30th of July, one of the 
ships passed the boom which the enemy had stretched 
across the river Foyle, and reached the starving town 
with a saving cargo of food. The besiegers then lost 
hope of success and marched away. At nearly the same 
time the Enniskilleners won a decisive victory at Newton 
Butler, routing 5000 of their assailants with little loss to 
themselves. 

In August, William sent an army to Ireland under 
Marshal Schomberg, a French Protestant soldier, and he 
followed it personally the next June (1690), with fresh 
troops. On the 1st of July he fought the Irish and 
French army of James, near Drogheda, and Battle of 
won the decisive Battle of the Boyne, from theB °y ne - 
which the defeated ex-king fled back to France. William 
entered Dublin and took control of the government ; but 
Irish resistance was not fully overcome until the next 
year. 

305. The Violated Treaty of Limerick. The war 
was ended by a treaty, signed at Limerick, October 30, 
1 69 1, which pledged to the Catholic Irish a little mea- 
sure of freedom in their religion, and promised to reward 
their submission by sparing their estates. This treaty 
was shamefully set at naught by the Anglo-Irish, in their 
Parliament, as soon as they had recovered power. It was 
violated by confiscations and persecuting laws, which, 
says Mr. Hallam, " have scarce a parallel in European 
history, unless it be that of the Protestants of France 
after the revocation of the edict of Nantes." Stripped 
of property on slight pretences, deprived of arms, denied 
the means of education, excluded from office and shut 
out of many employments, " the native population," says 



49 2 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1690-1691 

Lord Macaulay, " was tranquil with the ghastly tranquil- 
lity of exhaustion and despair." 

306. King William's Troubles in England. The 
troubles of King William were increasing in England, 
where few of the politicians of either party gave him 
an honest support. The late Stuarts had befouled the 
whole government, including Parliament, with corrup- 
tions which time, only, could cure, and, with all his high 
courage, he had become so despairing in 1690 that he 
nearly determined to resign the crown. His absence in 
Ireland gave the signal for activity among his enemies 
in both England and France. To encourage insurrec- 
tion and prepare for invasion, a great French fleet, under 
Count de Tourville, approached the English coast and 
Beechy defeated the English admiral, Lord Torrington, 
Head. wno f ee b]y commanded the united squadrons of 

Dutch and English ships, in a battle fought off Beachy 
Head (June 30, 1690). But when Tourville attempted 
a landing on the Devonshire coast, the country rose in 
arms to repel him, showing plainly that the plots to re- 
store James with foreign aid had little popular support. 

William's difficulties in England and Ireland were 
weakening his hand in the great European struggle with 
Louis XIV., which he still guided and inspired. Louis 
made head against his opponents during these first years 
of William's English reign ; but he did so at a cost which 
exhausted the resources of France, while England, politi- 
cally troubled as she was, but with the com- 

The strug 1 - 

giewith mercial energies of her people comparatively 
free, grew steadily in wealth and strength. In 
America, where this contest is sometimes called King 
William's War, and sometimes the First Intercolonial 
War, there were attempts made to drive the French 
from Canada, but without success. 



1692] 



A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY 



493 



La Hogue. 



Louis's last undertaking against England was in May, 
1692, when he prepared to send James, with a formidable 
French and Irish army and a powerful fleet, to reclaim 
the throne. Russell, the English admiral then 
commanding in the Channel, had been in trai- 
torous correspondence with the Jacobites, and was ex- 
pected to betray his trust ; but when the moment came 
he was not base enough 
for the deed. He attacked 
the French fleet near the 
Bay of La Hogue and de- 
stroyed the greater part. 

The treachery promised 
by Russell had also been 
promised by another more 
notable man. John Chur- 
chill, Earl (afterwards 
Duke) of Marlborough, 
who acquired the highest 
fame ever won by an Eng- 
lish soldier, and tarnished 
it with displays of the 
meanest character, was 
then beginning the min- 
gled glory and shame of his career. He had deserted 
James under circumstances of peculiar dishonor, 
and afterwards offered service to him as a trai- 
tor and spy. His perfidy was discovered, and, 
early in 1692, he was dismissed from the high offices and 
commands that William had trusted to him. 

307. Beginning of Party Ministerial Government. 
As a consequence of the Revolution, Parliament, or, strictly 
speaking, the House of Commons, had gained power to 
control the executive government in most branches of 




JOHN CHURCHILL, DUKE OF MARL- 
BOROUGH. 



Marlbor- 
ough's 
treachery. 



494 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1694-1697 

affairs. Practically, therefore, government had become 
impossible without agreement between the administra- 
tion and a majority of the popular House ; and, since 
political parties were now distinctly formed, it followed 
that the party which had a majority in the House of Com- 
mons must also hold the chief ministerial offices, if the 
administration of government was to be smoothly carried 
on. This was a new situation, existing nowhere else in 
the world, and it was not understood for some years. 
The first experiment with a party ministry, made up to 
be in agreement with the majority in Parliament, was 
tried by William in 1695. 

Of the Whigs then brought into office, four leading 

statesmen, the ablest among whom was Lord Somers, 

became the special counsellors of the king. 

The Junto. _, , . T , , 

They were known as the Junto, and they re- 
sembled the English Cabinet of later times much more 
than the Cabal of Charles II. had done ; but a perfected 
Ministry, united in responsibility, taking office and quit- 
ting office together, was yet to come. 

308. Death of Queen Mary. Late in December, 1 694, 
Queen Mary died, and her death was a grievous public 
loss, as well as a crushing affliction to the king. He 
was supported no longer by the loyal affection that she 
had inspired, and which he could not win. England was 
heavily burdened by the war, and disheartened by what 
seemed to be want of success. Yet success, as William 
saw, was being surely attained, in the wearing out of the 
strength of France, and he was able to hold his unwilling 
Peace of subjects and allies to the task until Louis XIV. 
Ryswick. humbled himself to the acceptance of terms, in 
the peace-treaty of Ryswick (October, 1697), which took 
from him all his conquests, except Alsace, and acknow- 
ledged William to be the rightful English king. 



1697-1698] A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 495 

To keep the peace thus gained, it was necessary that 

the alliance which William had created should still face 

the King of France, armed and ready ; for the question 

of the Spanish Succession (see page 478) was 
i • _ ti v 1 ■ • ^ ne Span- 

looming up. But Parliament, listening to no ishSucces- 

argument, cut the army down at once, and the 

king was left without power to obstruct the new designs 

of France. 

309. The Act of Settlement. Elections in 1698 gave 
the Tories a great majority in Parliament, which soon 
forced the surrender of the government to a ministry 
that was hostile to the whole policy of the king. Yet 
this same Tory Parliament and ministry were so free 
from Jacobitism that they framed and passed an act 
which positively barred the return of James or his de- 
scendants to the throne. William and Mary were child- 
less, and the last of the children of Mary's sister, Anne, 
had recently died. Aside from James II. and his son, 
there was a daughter of James's sister, Henrietta, and 
there were several children of Elizabeth (called Queen 
of Bohemia), the daughter of James I., for whom the 
crown might be claimed. Of these, only one, 

. . The 

Sophia, Electress of Hanover, had remained in Eiectress 
the Protestant faith, and to her and her descend- op 
ants, for that reason, the Act of Settlement appointed 
the regal succession after Anne. It enacted, further, 
that every future English sovereign must join the church 
of England, and it added important provisions to those 
contained in the Bill of Rights, for limiting the power of 
the sovereign ; while it imposed, for the first time, a dis- 
tinct responsibility on the ministers and advisers of the 
crown. This was the last of the great statutes by which 
the English monarchy is constitutionally limited and de- 
fined. Its passage by a Tory Parliament shows the 
advance in political ideas that had been going on. 



49 6 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1701-1702 

310. Opening of the War of the Spanish Succession 
and Death of William III. The passage of the Act of 
Settlement was soon followed by the death of James II. 
(September, 1701). On that event, the son of James was 
defiantly recognized as King of England by Louis XIV., 
and assumed the title of James III. English feeling 
resented this offensive action in France, and became 
instantly ready for war. A new Parliament was called 
and the Whigs returned to power. 

But King William, always feeble and suffering in body, 
was now a nearly dying man, unable to take the field, and 
Marlborough, forgiven his treacheries, was trusted with 
the command of forces sent to the help of the Dutch. 
Just as hostilities were beginning, an accident 
wmiam hastened William's death. The stumbling of 
his horse gave him a shock and an injury which 
his weakened frame. could not bear. He died on the 8th 
of March, 1702. 

311. Important Measures of William's Reign. Be- 
sides the great constitutional measures that have been 
described, the reign of William and Mary was marked by 
several important acts. By one bill (called the Second 
Triennial Bill) the duration of every Parliament was 
limited to three years ; by another, trials for treason 
were regulated, for the protection of the accused ; by 

the defeat of a third bill, the licensing and cen- 

Freedom . 

of the sorship of the press was brought to an end. 

The Bank of England was founded in 1694, 
when the permanent national debt of England had just 
begun its enormous growth. 

312. Queen Anne and her Reign. Anne was seated 
on the throne without open dispute, and, in the series of 
strangely fortunate happenings which helped the English 
people to take all real sovereignty from the crowned head 



1702-1714] A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 



497 



of their government, and to establish it in their represent- 
ative House of Commons, her reign has a quietly impor- 
tant place. Having not much force in character or mind, 
she was easily pushed into the background of English 
politics, where kings and queens (with one exception, 
that we shall find in George III.), have since remained. 
The crowned heads have been conspicuous hitherto, in 
the front of everything political that we have had to re- 
late, and the story has been little more than one of a long 
struggle to keep their pretensions in check ; but now, 
from this point, they count for little, as a rule, in Eng- 
lish political history. Its conflicts hereafter are between 
parties among the peo- 
ple themselves ; its is- 
sues are between their 
differing interests and 
views ; its important 
actors are uncrowned. 

313. The Epoch of 
Political Parties. Un- 
til the time of the 
Stuarts, the only wide- 
spread opinions or feel- 
ings that had force 
enough to cause large 
divisions of party were 
such as sprang from 
differences of religion 
or church. Under the 
Stuarts, a strong mix- 
ture of political with 

religious disagreements began to appear ; but, still, the 
animating oppositions, even through the Civil War and 
after it, almost to the final revolution, were religious ; 




QUEEN ANNE. 



498 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1702-1714 

political issues had a secondary place. It was in the 
reign of Charles II., as we have seen, that a distinctly 
political spirit began to show itself, in the rise of two 
opposing parties, Whig and Tory, which represented 
mainly a division between minds that were open to new 
ideas on public questions and minds that were not. In 
Queen Anne's time, the shaping of those parties, and the 
exciting of political action as a matter of contest between 
them, became a very notable fact. 

For the most part, the commercial and industrial 
classes in the towns, and the Nonconformists generally, 
were Whigs ; and so many of the nobles inclined to Whig 
views that the party commanded, on most questions, a 
wwgs and majority in the House of Lords. On the Tory 
Tories. ^^ w ^ f ew exceptions, were the " gentry " 
class of landowners, often spoken of as "the squires," 
and the clergy of the established church. The weight 
of numbers was commonly with the Tories, and the 
queen's feelings were strongly in their favor ; but cir- 
cumstances and superior intelligence gave more control 
over the course of events to the Whigs. 

314. Literature and Politics. The literature of Queen 
Anne's time and of the following reign gives remarkable 
evidence of the wakening of the English mind to an 
intellectual interest in public affairs. At no other time 
has so high an order of literary genius been enlisted in 
party warfare ; and never have such masterpieces of 
literary art been produced in party disputes as were con- 
tributed then to enduring literature by Swift, Addison, 
Steele, Defoe, Arbuthnot, and Gay. The same cause, 
more than any other, gave rise to the famous London 
coffee-houses of that day, as lively centres of news-telling 
and conversation ; and the talk of the coffee-house gave 
its quality and tone to the Addisonian essay, which was 
the exquisite literary creation of the age. 



1702-1714] A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 



499 




LONDON COFFEE-HOUSE IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. 



315. Marlborough and the War. When Anne came 
to the throne, and for some years after, she was under 
the influence of the Duke of Marlborough, through his 
wife, to whom she was passionately attached. This gave 
the whole influence of the crown to the support of the 
war with France (which extended to America and was 
there called "Queen Anne's," or the "Second Intercolo- 
nial War "), though the Tories, who claimed both Marlbor- 



500 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1704-1709 

ough and the queen for their party, were eager to bring 
it to an end. The Whigs, adhering to the foreign policy 
of the late King William, were ardently for the war, and 
Marlborough, agreeing with them in this, was gradually 
drawn to their side, carrying with him Lord Godolphin, 
an able Tory minister of finance. The marvellous mili- 
Bienheim, tary successes of the duke, who never lost a 
and" 11168 ' battle, — his intoxicating victories at Blenheim, 
oudenarde. Ramillies, and Oudenarde, — popularized the 
war, brought the Whigs back to power, and forced 
the queen, against her will, to give the ministry into 
their hands (1 704-1 708). This ended the friendship be- 
tween Queen Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough, 
which the latter had been wearing out by her arrogant 
use of it in the interest of the duke. A new favorite, 
Mrs. Masham, whom the Tories controlled, obtained in- 
fluence over the queen. 

316. The Union with Scotland. If the Whigs could 
claim the glory of the war, the Tory ministry might boast 
that the greatest achievement of peaceful statesmanship 
in Anne's reign was accomplished by their hands. The 
union of Scotland and England in one kingdom, with 
one Parliament and one crown, so long seen to be neces- 
sary for the peace and prosperity of both, but resisted 
so long by paltry jealousies on each side, was brought 
about in 1707, and the two realms were merged in the 
Kingdom of Great Britain, so styled from that time. 

317. Toryism in the Church. The Tories were at a 
disadvantage on the questions of the war ; but they had 
the influence of the church on their side,- and it was able 
to revive issues that had seemed to be dead. It attacked 
the dissenters with fresh intolerance, and it began a re- 
newed preaching of the servile doctrine of non-resistance 
to kings. In 1709, after the Whigs had regained power, 



1709-1713] A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 



501 



one Dr. Sacheverell stirred great excitement on this sub- 
ject by a Jacobite sermon in St. Paul's cathe- 
dral, which the ministers of the day were un- Sache- 
wise enough to make important by bringing the 
preacher to a solemn trial before the House of Lords. 
The clergy rallied to his defence, and their influence 






ENGLISH FLAG. 



UNION FLAG. 



SCOTTISH FLAG. 



raised a storm which swept away the Whigs, to the de- 
light of Queen Anne. 

318. The Treaty of Utrecht. The nation grew weary 
of the war, and that feeling helped the overthrow of 
the Whigs. The Tories, led by Robert Harley, Earl 
of Oxford, and Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, 
took control of the government, the queen creating new 
peers to give them a majority in the House of Lords. 
In 1 71 3, they brought the war to an end, by a treaty 
(the Peace of Utrecht) which was bitterly denounced by 
the Whigs, as being treacherous to the allies of England 
and false to herself. This famous treaty added, however, 
some important possessions to the rising British empire, 
including Gibraltar and Minorca in the Mediterranean, 
Acadia (which the English had named Nova Scotia) 
and the whole of Newfoundland, with Hudson's Bay 



502 



ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1713-17H 



and Straits, in America ; and it gave to Englishmen 
a shameful monopoly of slave trading with the American 
colonies of Spain. 

England came out of the war with immense prestige, 
Position of having taken a rank not recognized before in 
England. European eyes. She had risen to a supremacy 
in naval power that she never lost ; she had demonstrated 
a military capacity equal to France ; she had given proofs 
of a wealth that could bear almost any strain. 

319. The Death of Queen Anne. Signs of breaking 
health in the queen were warning both parties to prepare 
for a change on the throne. The prospect was welcome 




HACKNEY COACH IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. 



to the Whigs, but it caused among the Tories great con- 
fusion and doubt. The latter had passed the act which 
would carry the crown to the Hanoverian House, but 
they were dissatisfied with their work. The Electress 
Sophia was dead ; her rights had passed to her son 
George, Elector and Duke of Hanover and Brunswick- 
Luneburg, whose confidence, there was reason to believe, 
had already been won by the Whigs. If the Pretender 
in France, who styled himself James III., had consented 
to renounce the Catholic faith, it seems probable that the 
Tory party would have taken up his cause and brought 



i 7 i4] A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 503 

him in on the death of Anne. Even when he refused, 
there was a section of the party, led by Bolingbroke, 
that laid plans in his behalf, from which nothing could 
possibly come. The hopeless division of the Tories 
made it easy for the Whigs, when Anne died suddenly, 
in August, 1 714, to guard the throne for George I. until 
he arrived to take possession, in the following month. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

296. Filling the Vacant Throne. 
Topics. 

1. Effect of James's flight upon his deposition. 

2. The proclamation of William and Mary as joint rulers. 
References. — Bright, iii. 785-789. Character of William : 

Green, 675-677 ; Guest, 499, 500; Montague, 156; Traill, Wil- 
liam III., ch. i. ; Macaulay, ii. 126-134. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Why did England appeal to Wil- 
liam rather than to any other European sovereign? (2.) How 
did kings, on gaining power, usually act toward the leaders of 
the opposite party? (3.) What was William's course in this re- 
spect? (4.) Who had made himself obnoxious to the people in 
James's reign? (5.) How did the people take revenge? (Guest, 
499, 500.) 

297. The Declaration of Rights and the Bill of Rights. 

Topics. 

1. Action of Parliament. 

2. Content of the Bill of Rights. 

3. Settlement of the Succession. 

References. — Bright, iii. 806; Green, 683 ; Ransome, 191-196; 

Montague, 146-148; Traill, William III., 54, 55; Taswell-Lang- 

mead, 654-661. 
Research Questions. — (1.) To whom was the control of the 

army transferred ? (2.) What dangers did this tend to avoid ? 

298. The Deeper Effects of the Revolution. 
Topic. 

1. Death of the old feeling of the divine rights of kings. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 806, 807. 



504 A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. 

299. The Tory Reaction. — The Jacobites. 
Topics. 

i. William's character and causes of opposition to him. 

2. James's unsatisfactory attitude. 
Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 158, 159. 

300. The Mutiny Act. 
Topics. 

1. Mutiny in the army and changes in discipline. 

2. Yearly grant to the crown of power to control an army. 
Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 162, 163. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What is meant by martial law? 
(2.) What is a court-martial ? (3.) Why is the trial of soldiers 
for their offences necessarily different from that of civilians? 

301. The Toleration Act. 
Topics. 

1. The new Act of Toleration. 

2. The exclusion of Catholics. 
Reference. — Montague, 150-152. 

302. The Non-Jurors. 
Topic. 

1. Oath of fealty and displacement of non-jurors. 
Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 159, 160. 

303. The Revolution in Scotland. 
Topics. 

1. Episcopacy abolished and William and Mary proclaimed. 

2. Battle of Killiecrankie. 

3. Submission of Highlanders and Massacre of Glencoe. 
Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 152-154. 

304. The Orange Conquest of Ireland. 
Topics. 

1. Catholics restored to power by James. 

2. Rising for James and his arrival in Ireland. 

3. James a helpless tool in the hands of his supporters. 

4. Siege of Londonderry and victory of the Enniskilleners 

5. Battle of the Boyne. 

Reference. — Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 168-186. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 505 

Research Questions. — (1.) What was the real design of the 
uprising in Ireland? (Bright, iii. 812.) (2.) What people took 
over the lands of Ulster at the Cromwellian settlement ? (3.) 
Who settled most of Leinster and Minister? (4.) What name 
was given William's followers in Ireland, from the name of his 
house ? 

305. The Violated Treaty of Limerick. 
Topics. 

1. Content of the treaty. 

2. Action of the Anglo-Irish Parliament. 
Reference. —Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 197, 198. 

306. King William's Troubles in England. 
Topics. 

1. Corruption in the government and despair of William. 

2. Repulse of the French invasion. 

3. Louis's success on the continent. 

4. Second attempt at French invasion and its defeat. 

5. Treachery of Marlborough. 
Reference. — Green, 694-696. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What other means than open war 
did James employ to regain his throne ? (Hale, Fall of the 
Stuarts, 235, 236. (2.) To what measure for the protection of 
William did this lead ? (3.) What was there in William's early 
history to account for his persistent opposition to Louis XIV. 
of France? (Traill, William III., ch. ii.) 

307. Beginning of Party Ministerial Government. 

Topics. 

1. Gain in parliamentary power. 

2. First trial of party ministry and the Junto. 
References. — Green, 696-699. The ministry: Gardiner, iii. 

687,688; Ransome, 200, 201; Montague, 166, 167; Traill, Wil- 
liam III., ch. xi.; Macaulay, iv. 348-357; Taswell-Langmead, 
674-677. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What principle of the kingship was 
settled forever by the seating of William and Mary on the throne ? 
(2.) In the new idea of government which came in with William, 
what part was assigned to the king ? (Bright, iii. 808.) (3.) 
What weight did he attach to party considerations? (4.) What 



506 A CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

was the result of this variance between king and the Parlia- 
ment? (Bright, iii. 809.) 

308. Death of Queen Mary. 

Topics. 

1. Effect of her death. 

2. Peace of Ryswick. 

3. Mistake of Parliament in disbanding arm)'. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 844-860. 

Research Question. — (1.) How did the people receive the 
news of the Peace of Ryswick and what objects did William 
attain by it ? (Bright, iii. 859.) 

309. The Act of Settlement. 
Topics. 

1. Hostility of the Tories toward James. 

2. Possible heirs to the throne. 

3. Choice of Electress Sophia. 

4. Safeguards provided by Act of Settlement. 
Reference. — Montague, 153-156. 

310. Opening of the "War of the Spanish Succession 

and Death of William III. 
Topics. 

1. Death of James II. and recognition of James III. by Loui3. 

2. Preparation for war and death of William. 
References. — Bright, iii. 862-874. The Grand Alliance : Gar- 
diner, iii. 675 ; Bright, iii. 873 ; Green, 703 ; Morris, Age of 
Anne, 33-41. 

311. Important Measures of William's Reign. 

Topic. 

1. Three important acts passed during his reign. 

References. — Bank of England: Gardiner, iii. 660; Bright, iii. 
843,844; Green, 699; Cunningham and McArthur, 148-153, 161 ; 
Macaulay, iv. 392-403,555-561. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What was the condition of the press 
at this time ? (Guest, 505, 506.) (2.) In view of William's wars, 
were the taxes likely to be sufficient to pay the bills of the gov- 
ernment ? (3.) What did the government do to get money ? 
(4.) How did this get the name of the funded debt ? (Traill, iv. 



TOPiCS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 507 

522.) (5.) Where did the English get the idea of the bank, and 
how did it affect trade ? (Traill, iv. 524.) (6.) What was the state 
of the coinage under William ? (Hale, Fall of the Stuarts, 233.) 
(7.) While the money was being called in for recoinage, what 
difficulty was there in transacting business ? (8.) How did the 
bank help the government at this crisis? (Bright, iii. 850.) 
(9.) By what measure did the government help itself? (Bright, 
iii. 851.) (10.) Was there any security for these Exchequer 
Bills except the faith of the government? (11.) What is such 
a debt called? (12.) What part of our currency constitutes a 
similar debt ? 

312. Queen Anne and her Reign. 
Topics. 

1. Effect of her character in the growth of parliamentary power. 

2. Position of the crown henceforth. 
Reference. — Ransome, 207-209. 

313. The Epoch of Political Parties. 

Topics. 

1. Early prevalence of religious differences. 

2. Rise of political differences and the division of parties. 
Reference. — Morris, Age of Anne, 120-131. 

314. . Literature and Politics. 

Topics. 

1. Political writers. 

2. Coffee-houses. 

Reference. — Morris, Age of Anne, 21 1-241. 

315. Marlborough and the War. 
Topics. 

1. His influence at court. 

2. Policy of the Whigs. 

3. Blenheim, Ramillies, and Oudenarde. 

References. — Morris, Age of Anne, 42-118, 132-137; Colby, 
226, 227. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What famous stronghold in Spain 
did the English obtain by this war? (Guest, 511.) (2.) Bring 
into class and read Southey's poem relating to Blenheim. 



508 A CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

316. The Union with Scotland. 
Topic. 

i. Work of the Tories. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 685 ; Bright, iii. 924-928 ; Green, 714, 

715"; Morris, Age of Anne, 145-153 ; Colby, 227-229 ; Montague, 

158-161. 

317. Toryism in the Church. 

Topics. 

1. Attempt to revive dead issue. 

2. Trial of Dr. Sacheverell. 
Reference. — Morris, Age of Anne, ch. xiii. 

318. The Treaty of Utrecht. 
Topics. 

1. Tory control and end of the war. 

2. Possessions added by the treaty. 

3. Prestige of England. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 696, 697 ; Bright, iii. 921 ; Green, 
719; Morris, Age of Anne, ch. xv. ; H. Taylor, ii. 456, 457. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Prove from the terms of the treaty 
of Utrecht that this was a trade war. (2.) How does the con- 
cession of the slave trade to England indicate that the old the- 
ory of colonial trade still held? (3.) In what quarter beside 
America was French trade beginning to clash with English trade ? 
(4.) What doctrine of European politics did the treaty of Utrecht 
plainly enunciate ? (Green, 721.) 

319. The Death of Queen Anne. 
Topics. 

1. Dissatisfaction of Tories with the Act of Settlement. 

2. Death of Anne and accession of George I. 
References — Morris, Age of Anne, ch. xviii. Irish penal legis- 
lation : Gardiner, iii. 686; Lecky, i. 301-328, ii. 241, 265-315. 
John Locke: Gardiner, iii. 652; Bright, iii. S49 ; Green, 615; 
Traill, iv. 563-565. 

Research Question. — (1.) In what famous novel of Thackeray 
are the times and manners of Queen Anne portrayed ? 



CHAPTER XXI. 



THE ESTABLISHING OF MINISTERIAL GOVERNMENT. 



Hanoverian Kings : George I. — George II. 1714-1742. 

320. George I. Once more, reverence for royalty 
was lowered in English minds by a change of family 
on the throne, and so much that it has had no seri- 
ous political influence since. The effect went far to- 
wards making the 
crowned head of 
the government a 
merely convenient 
figure, such as it is 
at the present day. 

The new king 
was more foreign 
and more a stranger 
than William of 
Orange had been, 
and of William's 
ability he had none. 
He knew nothing 
of England ; he had 
not even learned 
its language ; he 
only comprehended that the Whigs were bound by their 
own interests to stand by him, and he put himself help- 
lessly into their hands. He was unable to take part in 




GEORGE I. 



5IO ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1714-1716 

the council of his ministers, and never ventured to refuse 
his assent to an act which Parliament had 

Helpless- . _, ... 

nessofthe passed. By mere incapacity, he set an example 
in these two particulars which became a rule 
for his successors ; and nothing, in the strange moulding 
of the British constitution, has done more to bring about 
a practical shifting of the whole responsibility of govern- 
ment from the wearers of the crown to the ministers 
who act in their name. 

321. Tories and Jacobites. The power gained by 
the Whigs on the accession of George I. was held with- 
out break for a generation. The Tory party was sunk 
into a state of sour discontent, which vented itself in a 
a good deal of sentimental Jacobite talk, but which, 
among Englishmen, had not much rebellious intent. In 
Scotland, where a great deal of bitterness against the 
union with England prevailed, there was enough Jacobite 
Jacobite ardor to encourage a rising for the Pretender, 
rebellion, in 1715. A few English Jacobites, in Northum- 
berland, attempted to support the Scottish movement, 
but it was feebly done. A battle at Sheriff muir, in Scot- 
land, ended the undertaking, and the Pretender, arriving 
on the scene too late for any service, was glad to escape 
back to France. 

322. Parliament and the Whigs. The Whigs had 
a great majority in the first Parliament elected under 
George I., but the king and his German court were soon 
so unpopular in the country that they feared to face a 
new election at the end of three years, as required by 

the Triennial Act. They evaded the clanger by 
tenniai P a very bad piece of legislation, known as the 

Septennial Act ( 1 7 1 6) , in which Parliament 
prolonged its own term, and the term of succeeding 
parliaments, to seven years. 



1715-1720] MINISTERIAL GOVERNMENT. 5 1 T 

323. Foreign Relations. The death of Louis XIV. 
of France, in 171 5, brought about a great change in the 
situation of affairs abroad, with the effect of drawing 
France, England, and Holland together, in an alliance 
against Spain. They were afterwards joined by Austria, 
and a short war, in which England took part with her 
fleet, defeated Spanish attempts to break the arrange- 
ments of the Treaty of Utrecht, and secured peace for 
a number of years. Disagreements between King George 
and some of his ministers arose out of these events. 
The king wished to use England in selfish schemes for 
enlarging and strengthening his Hanoverian dominions, 
and several ministers who opposed him resigned Sir Robert 
(171 7). One of these was Sir Robert Walpole, Wal P° le - 
who had been first lord of the treasury and chancel- 
lor of the exchequer for two years. In 1720 Sir Robert 
returned to office, and then entered on a notable career. 

324. The South Sea Bubble. When Walpole was re- 
called, the country was on the eve of a ruinous disaster 
which the ministers had helped to bring about. They 
had given encouragement to a frenzy of speculation, 
which raged in both England and France. Started in 
France, by a vast mad project known as "The Mississippi 
Scheme," it had spread to England, and produced there 
one equally mad. A "South Sea Company," chartered 
some years before, with special privileges of trade in 
Spanish America, made some kind of delusive bargain 
with the English government, in 17 19, for paying off the 
national debt. The scheme rested on wild ideas of the 
trade which the company would control, and those ideas, 
encouraged by the government, fired a craze of excite- 
ment in the public mind. Everybody became eager to 
get shares in the company, at any price, no matter what. 
Before the end of June, 1720, buyers were paying more 



512 



ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1720-1742 



than ten times the nominal value of the stock. At the 
same time, fraud and folly were floating a thousand 
other senseless projects in the market, and people of all 
classes ran after them in mobs, with money in their 
hands — small savings and large fortunes alike — to be 
thrown away. In September the waking from this 
strange delirium came, with an awful shock, which burst 
the air-blown bubbles of speculation, and spread ruin 
and wretchedness over the land. 

325. Walpole, Prime Minister. Walpole had opposed 
the dealings of the government with the South Sea Com- 
pany ; he had written and spoken with sound sense on 
the subject, and now men turned to 
him for help from the trouble into 
which the country had been plunged. 
A new ministry was formed, in which 
he became distinctly the head, and 
he held that position for more than 
twenty years. Since a ministry ex- 
isted, there had usually been one 
man who was recognized as holding 
the chief place, but never in the 
sense in which Walpole now took 
that place. Each minister had for- 
merly acted in his own office with a 
certain independence of power ; but 
Walpole established an authority 
over his colleagues which gave him the general direction 
of public affairs. 

He was too jealous a chief, and the effect of his con- 
duct was to drive men of spirit and talent from the 
government ; but he practically created the Prime Min- 
istry and the Cabinet of England — the office of that 
great minister who stands almost in the place of the 




COSTUME OF A GENTLE- 
MAN IN 1721. 



1720-1742] MINISTERIAL GOVERNMENT. 



513 



sovereign, as the real and responsible executive of gov- 
ernment, and the united council of associated 

, , , ... , The 

ministers by whom the prime minister is served English 
and advised. He left but one thing remaining 
to be done for the completion of the system of ministerial 
government in 
England as it is 
now carried on. 
That one thing 
was the fixing in 
practice of a rule 
that ministries 
shall quit office 
when outvoted 
in the House of 
Commons on any 
proposal that 
they make. That 
became a little 
later the estab- 
lished rule, and 
thus, though 
ministers are ap- 
pointed by the 




SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 



sovereign, they 

cannot stay in 

office without the approval of the representatives of the 

people. 

326. Walpole's Character and Administration. Sir 
Robert Walpole had no shining qualities or brilliant gifts. 
His morals, his manners, his tastes, were anything but 
refined ; his ideals in statesmanship were prosaic in the 
last degree. He aimed at nothing but strictly material 
benefits to the country, with an eye to its comfortable 



514 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1720-1742 

contentment, and nothing else. But that was what Eng- 
land most needed in his day, for the stable settlement 
of its parliamentary constitution, under the new race of 
kings, and there was almost perfect practical wisdom 
in the policy that he carried out. He kept the country 
out of war for a score of years, by steadily resisting 
frothy passions in Parliament and Hanoverian ambitions 
in the king. He softened the operation of the hard 
laws against dissenters, but would not have the worst 
of therri repealed, because such measures would excite 
the Jacobite temper in the clergy of the established 
church. He lightened the national burdens by careful 
economy and skilful measures of finance. He lapped 
England in a restful prosperity and ease that were politi- 
cally but not morally for its good. 

On its moral side, Walpole's statesmanship of plain 
common sense offers nothing to admire. He had no 
scruple as to the means by which its objects were at- 
tained. He not only increased the use of corrupt influ- 
ence in parliamentary elections and in Parliament itself, 
Political which had been growing since the Stuart resto- 
corruption. ra ti on> but he did so, apparently, with no wish 
for a purer state of things. He had nothing but derision 
for all classes of reformers and all notions of reform. 
The age was one of generally low aims, little warmth 
of feeling, little faith in humanity, little inspiration of 
any nature, and Walpole's personal influence and public 
policy helped, unquestionably, to lower the prevailing 
tone of disposition and thought still more. 

327. Death of George I. and Accession of George II. 
When George I. died, in 1727, it seemed impossible that 
Walpole should continue in power. Positive hatred had 
existed between the late king and the son who succeeded 
him, and the animosity of the latter extended to his 



1727-1742] MINISTERIAL GOVERNMENT. 515 

father's ministers and friends. But George II. was in- 
fluenced by a queen more intelligent than himself, and 
with her support the reins of government were kept in 
Walpole's hands. 

328. Growth of Opposition. For a dozen years in 
the new reign, Walpole was still supreme ; but the oppo- 
sition to him grew strong at last, by a combination of 
resentful and discontented Whigs with the small body 
of Tories that was still active in public life. It was 
managed for a time on the latter side by the skilful hand 
of Bolingbroke, who had obtained pardon and permission 
to return to England, after long exile, partly spent in 
the service of the Pretender, in France. The opposing 
Whigs were led by William Pulteney, afterwards Earl of 
Bath, and Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville, both 
able men, and it included a group of talented The eider 
and high-spirited young men (scornfully alluded Pitt - 

to by Walpole as " the Boys "), the most conspicuous of 
whom was William Pitt. 

329. The Fall of Walpole. It was a sign of healthy 
wakening in English feeling, that the attack of the oppo- 
sition to Walpole, especially on the part of the younger 
men, turned chiefly against his corrupt practices ; but 
his guilt in those practices was not the cause. of his fall. 
He suffered finally for what was most praiseworthy in 
his policy, its obstinacy against war. Spain was giving 
rough treatment to English smugglers, who swarmed 
about her colonies, carrying on a forbidden trade, and 
when, in 1738, one Captain Jenkins came home with an 
ear torn off by Spanish officials, there was a rage excited 
which nothing but war would appease. Wal- .. The 
pole obtained promises of reasonable satisfac- ^j^g's 
tion from Spain, but he could make no head Ear " 
against the furor which his opponents worked up, and 



5 i6 



ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1739-1742 



" The War of Jenkins's Ear," as it was called, broke out, 
in October, 1739. Unwisely, the defeated minister stayed 
in office for two years more ; but his supremacy was lost, 
and in 1742 he resigned, retiring, with the title of Earl 
of Orford, to the House of Lords. 

330. The Methodist Revival. It was in these last 
years of Walpole's ministry, when England, spiritually, 

was in a most lifeless state, 

IM^^ that a " extraordinai T reli - 

gious revival, out of which 

rose the Methodist organi- 
zation of a new church, was 
begun by John and Charles 
Wesley, by George White- 
field, and by others who 
joined them in their mis- 
sionary work. They were 
clergymen of the church of 
England, and it was not 
their purpose to lead any 
new movement of separa- 
tion from it ; but the emotion which they believed to be 
essential to religion, and which they sought to arouse, 
was disapproved by the ruling clergy of the church, and 
most of its pulpits were closed against their preaching. 
Driven to the holding of open air meetings and to the 
building of plain chapels for their congregations, which 
quickly swelled to thousands, their movement became, 
without intention, a great secession from the established 
church. But even the established church was stirred pro- 
foundly by the passionate revival, and the whole moral 
and religious tone of English society was affected to a 
greater depth in its lower classes than it had been by the 
wakening of the Puritan age. 




JOHN WESLEY. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 517 
TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

320. George I. 
Topics. 

1. Effect of the change in the royal family. 

2. Characteristics of the king. 

3. Precedent which he established in legislation. 
References. — Bright, iii. 930,931; Green, 721, 722; Morris, 

The Early Hanoverians, 27, 28. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Trace the claim of George I. to the 
throne. (2.) Point out Hanover on the map. (3.) What is its 
approximate size ? (4.) What is meant by an electorate ? (5.) 
What other kings of England had been first magnates on the con- 
tinent ? (6.) When was this union with Hanover dissolved ? 
(Morris, Early Hanoverians, 24.) (7.) Heretofore, what had been 
the custom of the kings in regard to council meetings ? (8.) 
What change in this procedure did George I.'s ignorance of Eng- 
lish make ? (9.) This established what change in government ? 
(10.) After the establishment of party government, to whom 
were ministers responsible ? (11.) While they were responsible to 
the king, what way only had Parliament to bring them to account ? 
(Montague, 171.) (12.) What treatment was given Anne's last 
ministry? (Bright, iii. 932.) (13.) Why is this likely to be the 
last impeachment for political purposes in English history ? 

321. Tories and Jacobites. 
Topics. 

1. Tory weakness and discontent. 

2. Jacobite uprising in Scotland. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 931-938. 

322. Parliament and the Whigs. 
Topics. 

1, Unpopularity of the king and the court. 

2. The Septennial Act. 
Reference. — Gardiner, iii. 704, 706. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Is the Septennial Act still in force? 
(2). How could it be justified ? (Bright, iii. 939.) 

323. Foreign Relations. 
Topics. 

1. Alliance on the continent. 



$l8 MINISTERIAL GOVERNMENT. 

2. Disagreement over the king's continental policy. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 942-946. 

324. The South Sea Bubble. 
Topics. 

1. The Mississippi Scheme. 

2. The South Sea Company. 

3. Frenzy of speculation and awakening from the delusion. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 711, 712; Bright, iii. 949-954; Green, 

728;' Colby, 229-231 ; Morley, 62-64 ; Traill, v. 127-129, 144, 145; 
Lecky, i. 348-350. 

325. Walpole, Prime Minister. 
Topics. 

1. His attitude toward speculation and his rise to power. 

2. Creation of prime ministry and cabinet. 

3. One thing remaining to be done. 

Reference.— Gardiner, iii. 712-730. Sir Robert Walpole : Bright, 
iii. 913, 931, 942-987; Green, 720-734; Morley, Walpole ; Colby, 
235-237; Montague, 172, 173. 

Research Questions. — (i.) In becoming prime minister, Wal- 
pole took, in fact, the place which had been vacated by whom ? 
(2.) How was the title regarded at first? (Gardiner, iii. 717.) 
(3.) What government office did and does the prime minister 
usually hold ? (4.) Why? (Gardiner, iii. 720.) 

326. Walpole's Character and Administration. 
Topics. 

1. His traits and policy. 

2. His corrupting influence. 

References. — Morley, Walpole. Rotten boroughs: Ransome, 

112, 165 ; H. Taylor, ii. 466-468. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What were Walpole's qualities as 

a peace minister, and as a financier ? (Green, 730.) (2.) What 

did Walpole do toward paying the national debt ? (Bright, iii. 

950; Morris, Early Hanoverians, 64.) 

327. Death of George I. and Accession of George II. 
Topics. 

1. Feeling between the late king and his heir. 

2. Influence of the queen. 

References. — Bright, iii. 966, 967. Queen Caroline : Morley, 
Walpole, ch. v.; Lecky, i. 503, 504. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 519 

328. Growth of Opposition. 

Topics. 

1. Bolingbroke leads the opposing Tories. 

2. Leaders among the opposing Whigs. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 720-722, 728, 729. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What financial measure gave Wal- 
pole's enemies a charge against him ? (Bright, iii. 973.) (2.) 
How did Walpole attempt to deal with smuggling ? (Bright, iii. 
974.). (3.) What is the difference between an excise and a tax? 
(4.) Why do people dislike an excise more than a custom duty ? 
(5.) What other class of men opposed the government ? (Bright, 
iii 978.) 

329. The Fall of Walpole. 

Topics. 

1. Attack on his corrupt measures. 

2. " The War of Jenkins's Ear." 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 980-987. 

330. The Methodist Revival. 
Topics. 

1. Reforms advocated by Wesley and Whitefield. 

2. Effect on the established church. 
Reference. — Green, 736-740. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

EXPANSION OF EMPIRE. 

George II. 1742-1760. 

331. Walpole's First Successors. The government 
gained nothing in purity from Walpole's removal, to offset 
the loss of his brain and hand. A ministry was made 
up which had no real head. Carteret, who became one 
of the secretaries of state, devoted himself to foreign 
affairs. His fellow secretary, the Duke of Newcastle, 
an extremely incapable man, acquired then such power 
in the government, by reason of nothing but the number 
of votes in the House of Commons which he and his 
family, the Pelhams, corruptly controlled, that he practi- 
cally swayed it for many years. 

332. The War of the Austrian Succession. Even 
before the retirement of Walpole, the war with Spain 
had been merged in the great European War of the 
Austrian Succession (see page 480), in which England 
bore an undistinguished part, mostly with her navy and 
her money, paying the latter in what were called sub- 
sidies to Austria and Sardinia, for the support of the 
armies which they put into the field. In this phase its 
popularity was soon lost. It was denounced as a war 
Rise of the carried on in the interest of Hanover, not Eng- 
eiderPitt. ] anc ] ) an( j William Pitt, then winning the ear of 
the country as a bold and impassioned orator in Parlia- 
ment, led the attack. In 1744, Carteret gave up office, 
and Newcastle and his brother, Henry Pelham, a much 
more competent man, were in full control. 



1743-1746] EXPANSION OF EMPIRE. 521 

One army, during the war, was made up in part of 
British troops, acting in conjunction with Hanoverians, 
Austrians, and Dutch. Its field was Flanders, and the 
neighboring part of Germany, where it fought two battles 
with the French, — the first, successfully, under 
the personal command of King George, at Det- and Fonte- 
tingen, in 1743 ; the second, in 1745, with de- noy ' 
feat, at Fontenoy, where the allies were commanded by 
the Duke of Cumberland, the king's younger son. 

333. The Last Jacobite Rising. The defeat at Fon- 
tenoy, in May, 1745, was followed in July by an attempt 
on the part of the Pretender's son, Charles Edward 
(called "the Young Pretender"), to raise rebellion in 
Scotland, by entering the country and appealing to the 
Highland clans. A few thousand clansmen gathered 
round him and were led to Edinburgh, taking the city 
with ease. Defeating a small English force at Preston 
Pans, in September, the prince then ventured, in Novem- 
ber, to invade England, with his army of about 6000 
Highlanders, expecting a great Jacobite rising, which did 
not take place. 

The Young Pretender's invasion of England was aban- 
doned at Derby, from which point he fell back to Scot- 
land, defeating at Falkirk an English army that had 
followed his retreat. The inefficiency of the British gov- 
ernment gave him all his success. It was not until April, 
1746, that his faithful Highlanders were broken Battle of 
and scattered, at Culloden, by the Duke of Cum- Culloden - 
berland's army of British and Hanoverian troops. The 
duke then earned the name of " the Butcher " by the 
barbarity with which he hunted the beaten rebels down. 
Charles Edward, after perilous adventures more roman- 
tic than those of Charles Stuart in 165 1 (see section 251), 
escaped to France, owing his safety in the main to the 



522 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1744-1751 

courage and address of Flora Macdonald, a young woman 
of the Hebrides. The Hanoverian sovereigns of Great 
Britain had nothing thereafter to fear from the Stuart 
pretenders ; and the Scottish Highlands became as 
orderly as any other part of the British Isle. 

334. The "War in America. The most important 
British success in the War of the Austrian Succession 
(see page 480) had been won in America meantime by 
the colonists, who sent an expedition, in 1744, against 
Louisburg, in Cape Breton, and captured that great 
French fort. In American history this war is often 
called King George's or the Third Intercolonial War. 

335. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. In 1748, the 
war was stopped by treaties negotiated at Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, which left nothing to either England or France 
for all its cost. Each surrendered its conquests from 
the other. Louisburg was given up to the French, 
greatly to American disgust ; but disputes concerning 
boundaries between the French and English possessions 
in America were left open, to be the cause of another 
war very soon. The peace was followed, however, by a 
few years of uneventful prosperity and a rapid increase 
of wealth. In the home affairs of England, the measure 

most important in those years was probably 

Old Style ... . . J . , 

and New one which corrected the calendar, in 175 1, 
adding eleven days to that year, and making 
subsequent years begin on the 1st of January, instead of 
on the 25th of March. 

336. The Clashing of French and English in America. 
The rival claims and ambitions of the French and English 
in the New World were now pushing the two peoples into 
a renewal of war. Both claimed ownership of the interior 
of the continent, south of the great lakes. The English 
claimed it as belonging to their colonies on the Atlantic 



1753-1756] EXPANSION OF EMPIRE. 523 

coast ; the French claimed by right of exploration and 
occupation, in which they had taken the lead. While the 
English had given a deep root of permanence to their sea- 
board settlements in America, establishing communities 
that were growing with a vigorous life of their own, they 
had done little towards laying hold in advance of the 
wilderness beyond. The French, on the contrary, whose 
oldest settlements were little more than military posts, 
had swarmed over wide areas of the continent, explor- 
ing, trading, founding missions, planting flags, building 
forts, busy in every way with efforts to establish a large 
territorial claim. There can never have been much 
uncertainty as to which mode of possession would win 
America in the end ; but there might easily have been a 
much longer struggle than that which now occurred. 

It opened in the upper valley of the Ohio, through 
which the French were undertaking to establish a chain 
of strong forts, from Lake Erie to the Mississippi. The 
governor of Virginia, in 1753, sent George Washington, 
then an officer of the Virginia militia, to pro- washing- 
test to the French commander against this ton - 
invasion of the English domain. The protest had no 
effect, and when Washington attempted, the next year, 
with a small force, to build an opposing fort, he was at- 
tacked by superior numbers and forced to retire. This 
was the opening of actual hostilities, which went on for 
some time in America, and extended even to various sea 
fights, before the state of war was officially declared. 

337. The Seven Years' "War. If the King of England 
had not been likewise Elector of Hanover, this war of 
England and France over disputed possessions in Amer- 
ica would not have become mixed up with the great at- 
tack on Frederick of Prussia which is known in history 
as the Seven Years' War (see page 481). But fears for 



524 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1755-1757 

Hanover led King George and his ministers to form an 
alliance with Frederick the Great. France was then 
persuaded to join the foes of Frederick, and so she en- 
gaged herself in a struggle with that indomitable soldier 
which terribly crippled her contest in America and pro- 
foundly affected its immediate result. To the Americans, 
on their side of it, this seven years' conflict, which raged 
in many parts of the world, was known simply as The 
French and Indian War. 

Until 1757, there was wretched incapacity in the Eng- 
lish management of the war. The defeat of an expe- 
dition led by General Braddock against the French in 
western Pennsylvania (1755), a humiliating 

Rsvsrscs 

surrender of the island of Minorca, in 1756, 
(for which Admiral Byng was barbarously condemned 
and shot, to appease public rage), and a panic fear of 
French invasion which shook England that year, were 
among the humiliations that the nation underwent. 

338. The Great Administration of the Elder Pitt. 
But now came a wondrous change, the work of a great 
war minister, William Pitt. Pitt had offended the king 
by his bold protest against measures making England 
the servant of Hanover, but he had delighted the people, 
on that and other subjects, by the freedom and eloquence 
of his speech. Newspapers were becoming numerous by 
this time, and some reporting of the talk and doings of 
Parliament had been begun. The public opinion of a 
great middle class, already supreme in political weight, 
but feebly represented in Parliament, was being thus 
called into action and making itself felt as an outside 
force. Pitt was the first of public men in England to 
be pushed into power by that force, which acted from 
beyond the walls of Parliament and against strong opposi- 
tion at court. 



1757] 



EXPANSION OF EMPIRE. 



525 



His hour of opportunity was reached in' 1757, when 
the king had -to consent to a division of authority in the 
government between Newcastle and Pitt, giving the lat- 
ter full control of the management of the war, and of 
public policy at large. The rapidity with which a change 
was then wrought in the whole spirit of the public ser- 
vice of the nation is a marvel not easily ex- 

, . , T , , Animation 

plained. In some way, the energy, the enthu- oftnepub- 
siasm, the courage, the ambition, the pride of 
country that moved the great minister, were electrically 
carried through 
every channel of 
action that he 
touched. His self- 
confidence was su- 
perb. "I know," 
he said, "that 
I can save this 
nation, and that 
nobody else can." 
With this feeling 
he claimed and 
exercised an au- 
thority to which 
all precedents, all 
practices, and all 
other wills must 
bow. His under- 
takings in the 
war were not al- 




WILLIAM PITT, THE ELDER. 



ways well planned, 

but the faith and energy with which he inspired it over- 
came every mistake and added triumph to triumph during 
three intoxicating years. 



526 



ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 



t'75S 



339. The Conquest of Canada. In 1758, Louisburg 
and Fort Duquesne (afterwards called Pittsburg) were 
taken, but General Abercrombie, who attempted the 
capture of Ticonderoga, suffered a bloody repulse. In 

the following year, Gen- 
eral Amherst succeeded 
where Abercrombie had 
failed. Then, too, the 
strong citadel of Que- 
bec, supposed to be im- 
pregnable, was taken by 
the gallant Wolfe, who 
fell in the moment of 
victory, while Mont- 
calm, his noble enemy, 
died in its defence. 
Before another year 
closed, the whole of 
Canada was submissive 
to the British arms, and 
the struggle with France in America was at an end. 

340. Conquests in India. The supremacy of the Brit- 
ish in India was practically established in these same 
extraordinary years, not by the British government, but 
by the great mercantile East India Company, first char- 
tered by Queen Elizabeth, re-chartered by Charles II., 
and reconstructed in 1702. Until the middle of the 
eighteenth century, the company had only occupied, by 
permission of native rulers, a few trading stations, at 
Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, and some minor points. Then, 
being seriously threatened by the French, who were get- 
ting a foothold in southeastern India by intermeddling in 
native wars, the company began opposing them by simi- 
lar means. Its undertakings were made successful by a 




JAMES WOLFE. 



1 746-1 760] 



EXPANSION OF EMPIRE. 



527 



Clive. 



remarkable young soldier, Robert Clive, who rose from 
a clerkship in its offices to military command. French 
influence was quickly checked and the subjugation of 
great districts of India to English rule was begun. 

The first of the Indian princes to be overthrown was 
Surajah Dowlah, who bore the title of Subahdar of Bengal. 
He had attacked and taken Calcutta, and had thrust 146 
of the English, without air or water, into one small room, 
where all but 23 perished of suffocation in a single night. 
Clive was swift in avenging this horror of " the 
Black Hole of Calcutta." With 900 Europeans 
and 1500 native troops (sepoys), he scattered an army 
of 50,000, at Plassey (June, 1757), and Surajah Dowlah 
reigned in Bengal no more. Three years later the last 
stand of the French 
against the English in 
southeastern India was 
made at Wandiwash, 
and they were de- 
feated by Colonel 
Coote. There and in 
Bengal, thereafter, the 
great company was 
a sovereign power, 
though a show of gov- 
ernment by obedient 
native rulers was kept 
up. 

341. Death of 
George II. and End 

of Pitt's Administration. At sea the British triumphs 
in these marvellous years were equal to those won upon 
the land. Admiral Boscawen scattered one fleet of the 
French in battle off Lagos in Portugal ; Admiral Hawke 




ROBERT CLIVE. 



528 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1760-1761 

shattered another in Ouiberon Bay ; and English mastery 
of the ocean was subject no longer to any serious dispute. 
Three years which have no equal in the history of the 
expansion of British empire and the rise of British mari- 
time power were rounded out in 1 760, and in October of 
that year George II. died. He was succeeded by his 
grandson, George III., whose father, Prince Frederick, 
died nine years before. The young king, arbitrary and 
opinionated from the first, had no respect for the public 
opinion which gave Pitt his strength, and the domination 
of the latter in the government was lost. In October, 
1 76 1, he resigned. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

331. Walpole's First Successors. 
Topic 

1. Carteret and Newcastle. 
Reference. — Gardiner, iii. 730-732. 

332. The War of the Austrian Succession. 

Topics. 

1. England's part in the war. 

2. Change in the ministry. 

3. Dettingen and Fontenoy. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 989-999. 

333. The Last Jacobite Rising. 

Topics. 

1. The Young Pretender in Scotland and England. 

2. Battle of Culloden, and the escape of the prince. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 999-1008. 

Research Questions. — (i.) What poem of Campbell's refers 
to the field of Culloden? (2.) What novel describes this at- 
tempt of the Young Pretender ? (3.) What was the last repre- 
sentative of the Stuart family in Europe? (Gardiner, iii. 743.) 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 529 

334. The War in America. 
Topic. 

1. Capture of Louisburg. 
Reference. — Gardiner, iii. 753. 

335. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.- 

Topics. 

1. Terms of the treaty. 

2. Correction of the calendar. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. ion, 1012, 1014, 1015. 

336. The Clashing of French and English in America. 

Topics. 

1. Grounds for the claims of each country. 

2. Different modes of possession. 

3. Outbreak of hostilities. 
Reference. — Green, 746, 747. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Name and locate English, French, 
and Spanish possessions in North America at this time. (2.) 
What cause for hostilities was sure to arise ? (3.) Was there any 
other question which might embitter the strife ? (4.) Compare 
the English settlements with the French in respect to ease of 
defence. (5.) For what kind of warfare did the French have the 
advantage ? 

337. The Seven Years' War. 

Topics. 

1. War the consequence of the connection with Hanover. 

2. The war in America. 

3. English losses and defeats. 
Reference. — Green, 747, 748. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What name did this war bear in 
America? (2.) If France engaged in wars in Europe, what part 
of her domain must she leave unstrengthened and undefended ? 
(3.) For what nations was it purely a trade war in its effects? 
(4.) Show that the striving for territory was really -a striving for 
trade. (5.) What do we consider the proper condition for trade 
to-day. 



53° EXPANSION OF EMPIRE. 

338. The Great Administration of the Elder Pitt. 
Topics. 

1. William Pitt. 

2. The support behind him. 

3. Pitt in the war office. 

4. His self-confidence and success. 
Reference. — Green, 748-755. 

Research Questions. — (1.) If the king did not like Pitt, how 
could the latter become minister ? (2.) What is the significance 
of this? (Gardiner, iii. 743.) 

339. The Conquest of Canada. 
Topics. 

1. Early successes of the war. 

2. Capture of Quebec. 

References. — Green, 755-757; Gardiner, 755, 756; Bright, iii. 

1029-1031 ; Colby, 247-250; Gibbins, 1 28-131 ; Traill, v. 193- 

200. 

340. Conquests in India. 
Topics. 

1. East India Company's supremacy under Clive. 

2. The Black Hole of Calcutta and the battle of Plassey. 

3. Disappearance of French influence. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 758-764. Clive: Gardiner, iii. 761- 
764,801; Bright, iii. 1113-1124; Guest, 526, 527; Colby, 244- 
247 ; Macaulay, Essay on Clive. 

341. Death of George II. and End of Pitt's Admin- 
istration. 

Topics. 

1. Triumphs at sea. 

2. English expansion. 

3. Death of the king and resignation of Pitt. 
References. — Green, 757-761. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What was done to continue Wal- 
pole's work in reducing the debt ? (Bright, iii. 1013.) (2.) What 
was the state of religion in England daring the reigns of these 
two Georges? (Green, 735, 736.) (3.) What was being done for 
the education of the poor? (Green, 736.) (4.) Were there any 
signs of philanthropic work? (Green, 740.) (5.) What literary 
product was begun in this age ? (Gardiner, iii. 746.) 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



BACKWARD STEPS AND LOSS OF EMPIRE. 



George III. 1 760-1 788. 



342. The Ideas of George III. The progress of Eng- 
land toward the perfecting of its ministerial system of 
government was seriously interrupted by George III., 
who had been 
taught, especially by 
his German mother, 
to look on that sys- 
tem as an uncon- 
stitutional growth, 
which it was his duty 
to destroy. As a 
matter of fact, there 
was nothing of the 
lawlessness of the 
Stuarts in what he 
undertook to do. 
Thus far, the minis- 
terial system had 
not received any 
well-marked consti- 
tutional stamp. It 
had been substan- 
tially controlled in 

its working by a few great Whig families, which held a 
corrupt influence over Parliament, and the king simply 




iEORGE III. 



532 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1760-1763 

claimed that he had a better right than they to control 
it by the same means. The good result in the end was 
its independence of both. 

According to his lights, King George was a conscien- 
tious man, and he was ambitious to be " a patriot king ; " 
but he was narrow in intellect, deficient in education and 
information, obstinate in opinions and in preiu- 

The char- 

acter of dices once formed. But an exemplary life, a 

Gcortrc II 

rigid piety, a simple dignity of manner, a thor- 
oughly English spirit, gave him personal popularity at 
the outset of his long reign. 

343. Government by the "King's Friends." Not 
many months passed, after the beginning of the new 
reign, before a controlling number of cabinet ministers 
were the "king's friends," with Lord Bute, a special 
favorite of the king and his mother, at their head. This 
was the beginning of a new Tory party, which drew 
back into active politics the old Tory classes, and united 
them with a body of deserting Whigs. 

344. The Peace of Paris. The first object of the 
new government was to bring the war, which gave Pitt 
so much glory, to a close, and this was done by a treaty 
signed at Paris, February, 1763. The terms of peace, 
though immensely favorable to England, were not satis- 
factory to the great war minister, and public opinion 
sustained his views. Yet England had received from 
British France the whole of Canada and Cape Breton, 
gains. with several islands in the West Indies, while 
Spain, which had joined France in the last year of the 
war, yielded Florida in exchange for the city of Havana, 
taken by an English fleet in 1762, and France ceded 
Louisiana to Spain. 

345. The Grenville Ministry. Bute, already odious, 
as a king's favorite and a Scotchman, was so violently 



1763-1764] BACKWARD STEPS. 533 

abused on account of the treaty that he resigned. George 
Grenville, who took his place, was Pitt's brother-in-law, 
but had turned against him and broken his connection 
with the Whigs. He was expected to be a pliant ser- 
vant of the king, secretly guided by Bute ; but, though 
he agreed with the arbitrary notions of King George, he 
and his chief supporter, the Duke of Bedford, took a 
tone of arrogance that gave his majesty great offence. 
For two years, however, the king's efforts to rid himself 
of Grenville and Bedford were vain. 

346. Persecution of John Wilkes and the News- 
paper Press. Meantime, Grenville and his colleagues, 
with the king's approval, had plunged the country into a 
sea of troubles, by follies at home and abroad. The folly 
at home was a malignant attack on the freedom of the 
press, as represented by one John Wilkes, a member of 
Parliament, who conducted a newspaper called " The 
North Briton," with especial hostility to Bute. For 
some sharp criticism of Bute and the king, .-TheNorth 
Wilkes and his printers were arrested, on a Briton " 
general warrant — a warrant, that is, against persons not 
named — which was issued by one of the secretaries of 
state. The whole proceeding was declared illegal by the 
courts ; whereupon the government began a series of 
persecutions, intended to crush the offending editor and 
his sheet. He was expelled from Parliament (1764) and 
criminally prosecuted for an indecent piece of verse that 
he had written, but which had never appeared in public 
print. He took refuge in France, and the government 
seemed to be rid of him ; but it was only for a time. 

Wilkes was a man of keen wit and many social accom- 
plishments, but odious in moral character, living a shame- 
fully profligate life. Under common circumstances he 
would have been generally disliked ; but the malice with 



534 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1764 

which he was pursued, and the hostility to free speech 
that appeared in his persecution, roused a feeling in his 
favor winch made him a popular hero and caused danger- 
ous disturbances at a later day. 

347. The Quarrel with American Colonies. The 
other folly was more serious in the trouble that it 
brought. It was the opening of a quarrel with the Brit- 
ish colonies in America, on questions which the wiser 
English statesmen were most unwilling to have raised. 
For some years there had been growing discontent in 
the colonies with the working of the Navigation Act (see 
section 295), and with other measures that repressed 
colonial industries and trade. So long as the French had 
been dangerous neighbors on their border, the colo- 
nists, needing English help, were naturally more patient 
of what they regarded as ill-treatment from England 
than they became after the French were driven out. At 
the same time, the heavy cost of the war which took 
Canada from France caused a feeling in England that 
the colonies ought to bear some share of the burden it 
left behind. As a matter of fact, the colonies appear to 
have done even more than their part in the war, having 
The coio- raised, paid, and clothed, according to the show- 
war with 8 m & °f Dr. Franklin, no less than 25,000 troops ; 
France. b u t ^jg was overlooked, and they were thought 
to owe some payment as English subjects for continued 
protection and present peace. Colonial governors in the 
past had often urged the home government to tax the 
colonies ; but no ministry until Grenville's had been will- 
ing to make the attempt. 

Now that attempt was not only made with rudeness, 
but it was preceded by an irritating act. Hitherto the 
New Englanders had been prudently allowed to carry 
on a smuggling traffic with the Spanish West Indies, 



1764-1765] 



BACKWARD STEPS. 



535 



exchanging timber and fish for molasses and sugar, out of 
which they made rum, for the slave trade and other com- 
merce, and they depended largely on this for the means 
with which to pay for English goods. No attempt had 
been made to collect impossible duties on the Spanish 
sugar until Grenville, suddenly, in 1 764, set in motion all 
the machinery of the law for putting down illicit trade. 

Then followed, in 1765, the famous Stamp Act, which 
required all legal and business documents in America, as 
well as books, and other articles, to bear stamps, The 
sold officially for the purpose, like postage stam P Act - 
stamps. It is a mode of taxation as little felt, perhaps, 
as any ; but a great number of the colonists were unwill- 
ing to be taxed at all by any other 
legislature than their own. Taxa- 
tion without representation they 
denounced as a constitutional 
wrong which English subjects had 
never endured ; and, so long as 
they had no representatives in the 
English Parliament, they resolved 
to pay no tax which it imposed. 
That resolve was expressed firmly 
and soberly by a congress of dele- A stamp. 

gates from the several colonies, 

and by strong resolutions from other dignified bodies ; 
but it was also expressed riotously, sometimes in demon- 
strations that were a shame to the colonial cause. The 
most impressive proof of American feeling on the sub- 
ject was given by the great number of people who joined 
in pledges to use no English goods until the Act was 
repealed. 

In their stand against the Stamp Act the Americans 
had powerful English support. Pitt and Lord Camden 




536 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1765-1766 

(a great lawyer) agreed with them in denying the right 
of Parliament to lay taxes upon them, and gloried in the 

resistance they made. Edmund Burke, the 
support of greatest political thinker of his time, while he 

would not consider it as a question of "right," 
laid bare the folly of the claim. Behind those eloquent 
leaders was a great body of English opinion that stoutly 
opposed the arbitrary dealings of the government with 
the colonies ; and, though that opinion, with all other 
popular sentiment, was feebly represented in Parliament, 
it was strong enough to bring about the repeal of the 
Stamp Act, in opposition to the king and his "friends." 

348. The Rockingham. Ministry. Grenville and Bed- 
ford had become so hateful to the king, though he liked 
their American policy, that, in order to be rid -of them, 
he had (1765) actually taken a ministry from the old 
Whigs. Newcastle was in it, but Lord Rockingham, a 
good man, of moderate ability, much influenced by Burke, 
who was his secretary, was the chosen head. Pitt, stand- 
ing aloof from all parties, would not join, and without him 

the government was weak ; but, early in 1766, 
ofth* the ministers carried the repeal of the Stamp 

stamp Act. ^ c ^ w .^ a declaration, however, of the right of 
Parliament to tax the colonies and to command them 
by its laws. They also dropped the duty on molasses 
to a point which removed another cause of discontent. 

349. Pitt as Earl of Chatham. — The Ministry called 
by his Name. Rockingham and his colleagues were dis- 
missed in July (1766), and Pitt was then persuaded to 
lend the power of his name to a cabinet in which he 
could do little- work, on account of his failing health. 
He could not bear the strain of leadership in the House 
of Commons, and so he unwisely accepted a peerage, as 
Earl of Chatham, and went into the House of Lords. 



1766-1769] BACKWARD STEPS. 537 

By this mistake he threw away a nobler title than any 
king could confer, and the people, who had lovingly 
called him " the Great Commoner," were surprised and 
shocked. 

Chatham's health was soon so completely broken down 
that he could give no attention to public affairs. Nom- 
inally the Duke of Grafton was prime minister ; actually 
the chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townshend, 
who believed in ruling the colonies with a high hand, 
took the ministerial lead. Chatham's ideas, in his ab- 
sence, were completely thrust aside, and the policy of 
Grenville was revived. A new measure for raising 
revenue in America, by port duties on paints, Townshend 
glass, paper, and tea, was carried through, and duties - 
rebellious feeling in the colonies was stirred up afresh. 
Before the effects of it were seen, Townshend died (Sep- 
tember, 1767), and his place as chancellor of the ex- 
chequer was filled by Lord North. From that time, for 
fifteen years, the king was, in reality, his own prime min- 
ister, though Grafton kept the title for two years longer, 
and though Chatham's name was still on the cabinet 
list. But Chatham recovered in 1768, sufficiently to un- 
derstand the falsity of his situation, and resigned. 

It is a fact interesting to note, that while the king and 
his ministers were foolishly preparing to throw away the 
better part of the dominion of Great Britain in America, 
they were persuaded, with no foresight of the 
result, to send out (1769) the exploring expedi- and New 
tion, commanded by Captain Cook, which took eaan ' 
possession of Australia and New Zealand, and added to 
the British Empire that great and important region of the 
world. 

350. Wilkes again. The royal hand in government 
now worked mischief on both sides of the sea. A new 



538 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [176S-1774 

Parliament was elected in 1768, and filled, by lavish brib- 
ery, with the "king's friends." But one great constitu- 
ency, that of Middlesex, where a freer vote prevailed, 
elected Wilkes, who had returned from France and boldly 
appealed to the people for support. Parliament expelled 
him, on the demand of the king, and he was thrown into 
prison — an act which set London and half the kingdom 
aflame. Middlesex reelected him, and again Parliament 
refused him the seat. A third time he was returned by 
an immense majority, and then the party of the king 
went so far as to seat the defeated candidate in his place. 
The excitement and riotous tumult produced in England 
was even greater than that prevailing in America, and 
Wilkes triumphed finally, winning his seat in 1774. 

The most famous of the political writings of this ex- 
cited time was a series of remarkable letters, signed 
Letters of " Junius," the authorship of which has never 
Junius. come to light. 1 They were published at inter- 
vals from November, 1768, until January, 1772. 

351. Lord North and the Beginning of the War of 
American Independence. Early in 1770, Grafton re- 
signed ; Lord North was made prime minister in name, 
but acted under the direction of the king. He was an 
amiable man, excellent in business and in party manage- 
ment, but with no force to resist the king's will or the 
drift of the party to which he belonged. 

Grafton had succeeded in repealing a part of what 
were called the Townshend duties, but the duty on tea 
had been kept, in order to maintain the right which the 
The tax on colonists denied, and it did all the mischief that 
tea " a whole tariff system could have done. Harsh 

measures against Boston, and the quartering of troops 

1 The opinion that the Junius Letters were written by Sir Philip 
Francis is widely accepted, but cannot be said to be proved. 



1773-1776] 



BACKWARD STEPS. 



539 



in that city, failed to subdue the temper of its people, 
and when tea ships arrived (1773) their cargoes were 
thrown overboard by disguised men. From other ports 
the tea ships were driven away, or not allowed to land 
their freight. 

Then came acts of retaliation by Parliament (1774), 
closing the port of 
Boston, changing 
the government of 
Massachusetts, and 
forbidding public 
meetings, while 
General Gage was 
sent with troops to 
put them in force. 
A " Continental 
Congress " of the 
colonies, assembled 
at Philadelphia, 

made the cause of 
Massachusetts the 
common cause of 
all, and when, in 
April, 1775, the 
king's soldiers at 
Boston came to blows with the farmers and villagers of 
Lexington and Concord, the signal was given for a gen- 
eral revolt. 

352. The King and the Nation in the American 
War. After hostilities were actually begun, and espe- 
cially after the thirteen colonies had issued a solemn 
Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776), the fighting 
temper and the national spirit which armed opposition 
excites ranged the feeling of a large majority of the Eng- 




LORD NORTH. 



540 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1776-17S2 

lish people, without doubt, in support of what was com- 
monly called " the King's War." But there was always 
a strong Whig party that condemned it with no reserve ; 
and a far larger party began soon to grow urgent for 
efforts to end it, by every concession except independ- 
ence, which not many of the colonists had originally 
desired. There seems to be no doubt that, if English 
public sentiment could have had its way, Chatham would 
have been called to the head of the government, at an 
early stage of the American conflict, to exert his vast 
influence in both countries for peace. Lord North was 
urgent for the experiment ; but the king would not con- 
sent. 

It was the blind obstinacy of King George, more than 
any and all states of feeling among his subjects, that car- 
ried England into conflict with her children in 

The atti- . . , . . .. , . . . 

tudeofthe America, and that gave an irreconcilable bitter- 
ness to the strife. With a Parliament that had 
sold its votes to him for pensions and profitable offices, 
and with ministers who had no will of their own, he man- 
aged the doings of government in his own way. 

353. War with France, Spain, and Holland. — 
Armed Neutrality. In 1778, France entered into alli- 
ance with the now " United States of America ; " Spain 
joined the alliance in the following year ; and, in 1780, 
the Dutch ranged themselves on the same side. In the 
latter year a league of " Armed Neutrality " was formed 
among the nations of northern Europe, which crippled 
the efforts of England to break up the trade of her ene- 
mies, and they pressed her hard on every side. America 
was helped to freedom by the combination, but it failed 
to overthrow the British lordship of the sea. In two 
great battles, with a Spanish fleet in 1780 and with a 
French fleet in 1782, Admiral Rodney confirmed the 



1767-17S2] BACKWARD STEPS. 541 

naval supremacy of England by the victories that he 
won. 

354. King George's Failure. When George III., in 
the spring of 1782, accepted the resignation of Lord 
North, gave office to a Whig cabinet, under Rocking- 
ham, and consented to negotiations for peace, he was 
not only yielding to the failure of a false colonial policy, 
and to the loss of a great dominion in the western world, 
but he was bowing to the defeat of the last attempt 
of an English king to act his own will in the government 
of his realm. He had not tried, like the Tudors and the 
Stuarts, to wrench away the sovereignty of Parliament, 
but he had bribed that degenerate body to betray to him 
its powers, and he had made its ministers his tools. It 
was the last experiment in dictatorial kingship that could 
be tried, and it had come disastrously to shame. 

There was yet to be half a century before Parliament 
would represent the people ; but so much of the national 
will as it stood for was now sovereign in reality, once 
more, and the king again became that figure of stately 
ceremony which English kings and queens must content 
themselves with being. 

355. Home Measures of the Ministry of Lord North. 
In matters at home, the government had done little of 
note since the king took control. It had failed in an 
attempt, made in 1771, to stop the reporting of debates 
in Parliament ; and, though never formally authorized, 
the freedom of reporting was never questioned again. 

The best act of the period was one that repealed a few 
of the most atrocious anti-Catholic laws ; but it gave 
rise to fearful riots, by ignorant mobs which found their 
leader in a Scotch nobleman, Lord George Gordon 
Gordon, who was incapable of comprehending nots - 
the wickedness of what he did. For four days, in June, 



542 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1775-1785 

1780, London was at the mercy of the mobs, and the 
pillage and destruction of property was immense. 

356. Ireland. The example of America and the 
struggle in which England was engaged with many 
enemies had moved the Irish to demand redress for the 
more grievous of their wrongs. The government had 
permitted volunteers to be raised in Ireland, to repel 
French invasion, and soon found itself confronted by no 
less than 60,000 well organized men, who backed the 
call for certain measures of relief. In the circumstances 
there was little thought of refusal, and, in 1780 and 1782, 
Measures ac ^ s were passed which yielded more freedom 
of relief. j. Q jj-jg^ commerce, gave independence to the 
Irish Parliament, abrogated the Poynings Law (see sec- 
tion 125), and repealed the worst of the acts by which 
Catholics were oppressed. But Catholics (the majority 
of the Irish people) were still unrepresented in the Irish 
Parliament, and that assembly was only corrupted and its 
partisan bigotry inflamed by the independence it acquired. 

357. India under Warren Hastings. The French, 
by alliance with hostile natives, had made new attempts 
against the English in India during the war ; but the 
latter were firm in their footing at its close. They had 
withstood their most formidable enemy, Hyder Ali, the 
able chief of Mysore, with all the help that France could 
give him, and their rule and their influence were advan- 
cing year by year. 

By an act of 1775, the political government of this 
dominion in the east was transferred from the directors 
of the East India Company to a governor-general and 
council, approved by the crown. The governor-general 
from that time until 1785 was Warren Hastings, a man 
of supreme ability, to whom, after Clive, the English in 
India owed their astonishing grasp of wealth and power. 



1775-1785] BACKWARD STEPS. 543 

Neither Clive nor Hastings, nor many among their coun- 
trymen who sought fortune in India, had scrupled as 
to the means by which riches were gathered and feeble 
states were brought under their control. The natives 
had been plundered and wronged by more methods of 
oppression than ever came to light. But it is now known 
that powerful enemies laid more than his just share of ill- 
fame upon Warren Hastings, for the dark crimes of those 
days in Hindustan. He came home to face im- 
peachment and the most famous of trials, in warren 
Westminster Hall, with the eloquence of Burke, as mgs ' 
Fox, and Sheridan combined against him, and to wait 
eight years for the acquittal that came at last. 

358. The Shelburne Ministry and the Coalition. 
Lord Rockingham died before the conclusion of the 
treaties which (1 782-1 783) acknowledged the independ- 
ence of the United States and made peace with France, 
Holland, and Spain. His place was taken by the Earl of 
Shelburne ; but Shelburne's Whig rival, Charles James 
Fox, went into alliance against him with the Tory leader, 
Lord North, and early in 1783 he was forced to resign. 
The Coalition ministry, as it was called, then formed by 
Fox and North, was obnoxious to both the people and 
the king. It controlled a large majority in the House 
of Commons, but the king's influence defeated it in the 
House of Lords, on a bill to change the government of 
India, and then events took a very surprising course. 
The Coalition ministry was dismissed (December, 1783), 
and a younger William Pitt, son of Lord Chatham (who 
died in 1778), was called by the king to the helm of state. 

359. The Ministry of the Younger Pitt. William 
Pitt the younger was but twenty-four years of age when 
he boldly undertook to lead a ministry and to conduct 
the government, in the face of a large hostile majority 



544 



ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1783-1784 



in the House of Commons, controlled by its ablest 
managers and debaters, Fox and North. For weeks 
he was beaten in every vote ; but the rule that a beaten 
ministry must resign was not yet fixed in practice, and 
Pitt held his ground. Public opinion grew fast in his 
favor and made itself felt. Time-serving members, who 
suspected that he would win, came over to him, until in 
March he had broken down the opposing majority, and 
then Parliament was dissolved. The ensuing elections 

were carried over- 
whelmingly in his fa- 
vor, and Parliament 
became obedient to 
the young prime 
minister, rather 

than to the king. 

Pitt, like his fa- 
ther, made a party 
of his own. He 
drew the Tories into 
it, and came to be 
classed with them ; 
but his Toryism was 
liberal and broad. 
One of his early 
undertakings as 
prime minister was 
to begin a reform 
of the representa- 
tion in Parliament ; another was to give free trade with 
England to the Irish ; a third was to bring the 
ftateV villainies of the slave trade under restraint, 
manship. These were all p i ans f statesmanship too high 

in principle for the time, and he had to put them aside. 




WILLIAM PITT, THE YOUNGER. 



1784-1788] BACKWARD STEPS. 545 

But he had success in simplifying the cumbrous duties 
and regulations that burdened English trade. He also 
passed an India bill (1784), which organized the East 
India Company's government as it remained until 1858. 

360. The King's Loss of Mind. In the fall of 1788, 
a mental disorder which had shown itself slightly in 
King George, for a short time, in 1765, reappeared more 
seriously, and he was deranged until the following spring. 
A bill to give the regency of the kingdom to the Prince 
of Wales was kept in Parliament so long, by debate over 
the restrictions that should be put on the powers of the 
prince, that the king recovered his senses before it came 
into effect. France at that hour was on the eve of her 
great Revolution, from which England and all the world 
would soon be feeling profound effects, and the trying 
period of Pitt's career was about to begin. 

361. The Epoch of Mechanic Invention and Indus- 
trial Revolution. England, itself, at this time, was en- 
tering upon a revolution very different from that which 
impended in France, but the silent effects of which were 
of even greater moment to mankind. There exists an im- 
mense difference between the methods and the organiza- 
tion of industry in the nineteenth century and those that 
were practised before. It is a difference that has been 
brought about by mechanical inventions of labor-saving 
machinery, and by scientific discoveries, which have in- 
creased the power of man to produce things for the satis- 
faction of his wants. Such invention began, of course, 
when civilization began ; but it went forward very creep- 
ingly through all the centuries until the last third of the 
eighteenth. Then a sudden, tremendous leap in it nearly 
broke all connection between the ways in which the work 
of the world was done before and the ways in which it 
has since been done. 



546 



ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1764-1790 



It was principally in England that the revolutionary- 
leap of inventive enterprise was made, and, consequently, 
England won, then, the industrial as well as the com- 
The great mercial leadership of the world. Hargreave, in 
inventors. 1764, Arkwright, in 1769, Crompton, in 1779, 
invented spinning machinery, and Cartwright, in 17S4, 

invented a pow- 
er-loom, which 
ended the hand- 
spinning and 
hand-weaving of 
the past ; James 
Watt, in 1 776, 
made the steam 
engine a cheap 
and practicable 
source of power 
for moving such 
machines ; Smea- 
ton, Cort, and 
others, between 
1760 and 1790, 
improved and 
cheapened the 

watt's steam engine in 17S0. x 

making of Eng- 
lish iron, and Brindley began the building of many canals, 
for internal trade, while Arthur Young, in that period 
and after, was laboriously teaching better agriculture to 
the tillers of the soil. 

While labor was being thus armed with new powers, 

and better highways were being opened to trade, 

'•weaitnof a book appeared (1776), entitled "The Wealth 

Nations- of NationS) " by Adam Smith, which taught the 

English people to see that when labor is most free to 




1789] BACKWARD STEPS. 547 

produce, and to exchange what it produces, with least 
interference from the makers of law, the result of general 
wealth is greatest and most sure. It was a truth learned 
slowly, but with extraordinary effect in the end. 

So England, at the outbreak of the French Revolu- 
tion, was passing the beginnings of a momentous revo- 
lution within herself. It was a revolution as much 
social as economic. It gave rise to the factory system, 
to huge manufacturing establishments, to powerful com- 
binations of capital, to new and greater inequalities of 
wealth. It built up cities, increased their popu- The social 
lation enormously, and created in them a class revolution - 
of workingmen easily stirred by ideas, easily combined, 
and certain to become a power in the state. It made 
the region of coal and iron, in the north, the most 
thickly peopled part of the land. It raised up an interest 
in the country which soon outweighed the landowning 
interest, that had ruled it before. It worked great and 
rapid changes in the structure of English society, and in 
its whole character and tone. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

342. The Ideas of George III. 

Topics. 

i. The king an obstacle to ministerial government. 

2. Character of George. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 765, 766; Bright, iii. 1035, 1036; 

Green, 761, 762; Ransome, 217; Guest, 532, 533; Roseberry, 

Pitt, 10-14; H. Taylor, ii. 477, 478. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What doctrine did the Whigs stand 

for? (2.) How firmly had they established their power? (3.) 

What would be the natural effect upon an arbitrary king of the 

exercise of such power? (4.) What advantage over the previous 

kings of his house did George III. have in achieving popularity ? 

(5.) Compare his character with that of Charles I. (Gardiner, 

iii. 765) ; with James II. (Green, 761.) 



54 8 BACKWARD STEPS. 

343. Government by the "King's Friends." 

Topic. 

i. Lord Bute and the new Tory party. 

Reference. — Gardiner, iii. 766-76S. 

Research Questions. — (1.) To whom had the Tory party been 
looking as the rightful king ? (2.) What event had put an end 
to those hopes ? (3.) Why was it natural for the political ideas 
of the Tories to be less progressive than those of the Whigs ? 
(Green, 761, 762.) (4.) What can be said of the condition of 
Parliament at the time of Bute ? (Gardiner, iii. 767, 768.) 

344. The Peace of Paris. 
Topic. 

1. English gains by the treaty. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1040. 

345. The Grenville Ministry. 
Topics. 

1. Bute obliged to resign. 

2. Grenville's attitude toward the king. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1041, 1042. 

346. Persecution of John Wilkes and the Newspaper 

Press. 
Topics. 

1. Grenville's attack on the freedom of the press. 

2. Government persecution of John Wilkes. 

3. Wilkes's character and the source of his popularity. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 769, 770,774, 77s, 779 5 Green, 767, 

768, 773, 774 ; Colby, 253-256 ; Ransome, 222-224, 239, 240 ; 
Montague, 179-183; Taswell-Langmead, 726, 736-73 8 ; Lecky, 
vol. iii. chs. x., xi. 
Research Question. — (1.) What is the objection to general 
warrants? (Gardiner, iii. 769-770; Montague, 179.) 

347. The Quarrel with American Colonies. 

Topics. 

1. Cause of American discontent. 

2. English view of the situation. 

3. American smuggling and Grenville's action. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 549 

4. The Stamp Act and American opposition aroused. 

5. English supporters of the Americans. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1045-1048. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Why would there be a natural ten- 
dency after the French and Indian War to criticise the mother 
country? (Green, 760.) (2.) What ground was there on which 
the colonies could unite? (Bright, iii. 1056, 1057.) (3.) Why did 
the colonies submit to trade restrictions and object to the Stamp 
Act? (4.) Compare the raising of "ship money" in the time of 
Charles I. with the Stamp Act. (5.) Compare the minds of Pitt 
and Burke. (Gardiner, iii. 773.) 

348. The Rockingham Ministry. 
Topics. 

1. The new ministry. 

2. Repeal of the Stamp Act. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1050-1052. 

349. Pitt as Earl of Chatham. — The Ministry called 

by his Name. 
Topics. 

1. Pitt accepts a peerage. 

2. Townshend duties. 

3. Lord North and the king. 

4. Explorations of Captain Cook. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1053, 1054. 

350. Wilkes again. 
Topics. 

1. The Middlesex election. 

2. Contest between Wilkes and the king's party. 

3. Letters of Junius. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 774-776; Bright, iii. 1057, 1058; 

Green, 768, 774 ; Colby, 256-258 ; Lecky, iii. 253-277. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What good came out of the Wilkes 

struggle ? (Gardiner, iii. 789.) (2.) Compare the agitation about 

the Middlesex elections to the agitation which brought about 

the American Revolution. (Gardiner, iii. 794.) 



550 BACKWARD STEPS. 

351. Lord North and the Beginning of the War of 

American Independence. 
Topics. 

i. North's character. 

2. Retention of the tea duty and the action of Boston. 

3. Retaliatory measures of Parliament and their consequences. 
Reference. — Gardiner, iii. 776-783. 

352. The King and the Nation in the American War. 

Topics. 

1. Attitude of the English public toward the war. 

2. Desire for peace and opposition by the king. 
Reference. — Green, 781, 782. 

Research Questions. — (1.) How many years had elapsed since 
the French and Indian War? (2.) How well fitted financially was 
England to goto war again? (3.) How did she get an army to- 
gether ? (4.) What was the effect of the employment of these 
soldiers upon the colonists ? 

353. War with France, Spain, and Holland. — Armed 

Neutrality. 
Topics. 

1. Formation of the alliance. 

2. What it achieved. 

References. — Green, 782; Bright, iii. 1099. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Give reasons in each case respec- 
tively to show why France, Spain, and Holland were ready to 
fight England. (2.) Show from the terms of the alliance that 
France's only motive was revenge. (Bright, iii. 1083, 1084.) (3.) 
What united all Europe against England? (Gardiner, iii. 792.) 
(4.) What power of Great Britain enabled her against such odds 
to keep at least a part of her dominions. 

354. King George's Failure. 
Topics. 

1. Significance of the king's submission. 

2. The real sovereignty from that time. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1 104, 1 1 12. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What had been the way in which 
the sovereign attached men to his cause and rewarded their ser- 
vice ? (2.) What was the significant feature of Burke's reform 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 55 1 

bill passed at this time ? (Gardiner, iii. 795.) (3.) What treaty 
ended the American Revolution? (4.) What disposition was 
made of Florida by this treaty and was it a boon to the colonies ? 

355. Home Measures of the Ministry of Lord North. 
Topics. 

1. Establishment of the freedom of the press. 

2. Gordon riots. 

Reference. — Bright, iii. 1092, 1093. 

356. Ireland. 
Topic. 

1. The Irish demands and the concessions made. 
Reference. — Traill, v. 505 sqq. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Describe the political condition of 

Ireland at this time. (Gardiner, iii. 796.) (2.) What did Pitt 

attempt to do for Ireland ? (Green, 817, 818.) 

357. India under Warren Hastings. 
Topics. 

1. Suppression of French attempts upon India. 

2. Change in the government; rule of Warren Hastings. 

3. Impeachment and trial of Hastings. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 801-806 ; Macaulay's Essay on 
Warren Hastings ; Bright, iii. 1 130-1 140. 

358. The Shelburne Ministry and the Coalition. 

Topics. 

1. Lord Rockingham's death and the Shelburne ministry. 

2. Coalition ministry of Fox and North, and the appointment 

of William Pitt the younger. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1 1 1 1, 1 1 12. 

359. The Ministry of the Younger Pitt. 
Topics. 

1. Pitt and his first experiences. 

2. Growth of his support. 

3. His party and his measures. 
Reference. — Green, 790-795. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Compare the younger Pitt with his 
father. (Gardiner, iii. 799.) (2.) What influence contributed to 
his greatness? (Green, 793.) 



552 BACKWARD STEPS. 

360. The King's Loss of Mind. 
Topics. 

i. The Regency bill. 

2. Approach of the French Revolution. 

361. The Epoch of Mechanic Invention and Indus- 
trial Revolution. 
Topics. 

i. Industrial progress up to close of eighteenth century. 

2. Great inventions at this time. 

3. " The Wealth of Nations." 

4. Nature of this social and industrial revolution. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 810, 813-818; Bright, iii. 1 150, 1228; 

Green, 791-793 ; Colby, 268-270,278-281; Cunningham & Mc- 
Arthur, 4, 131, 132, 163, 198, 201,202, 219-225; Gibbins, 143, 
181, 189; Traill, v. 305-321, 330-332, 455-474, 4§i ; Lecky, iii. 
423, 425, vi. 206-225. 
Research Questions. — (1.) What process assisted at this time 
in making an age of manufacture? (Green, 792.) (2.) In what 
part of England were deposits of coal and iron found close to- 
gether ? (3.) Where, then, would manufactures naturally arise? 
(4.) What invention in coal mining assisted manufactures? (5.) 
What effect would this new departure have on the distribution 
of population ? (6.) What used to be the most densely popu- 
lated portion of England ? (7.) Where is the densest population 
to-day? (8.) What old idea of wealth did the trading classes 
still hold? (Green, 793.) 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



CONFLICT WITH THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



George III. 1789-1800. 

362. English Attitude toward the French Revolu- 
tion. The early movements of the great revolt in 
France were watched with ardent sympathy by many in 
England, some hoping for a republic to come from it, 
and some for a consti- 
tutional monarchy like 
their own. Even Pitt 
seems to have shared 
the latter hope for a 
time. Edmund Burke, 
on the contrary, looked 
with dark forebodings 
from the first on the 
action of the French, 
and used all his powers 
to rouse feeling against 
them. Fox, with a 
considerable Whig fol- 
lowing, championed 
the revolution long af- 
ter the mad violence 
began (see page 483), which shocked and frightened most 
sober-minded men. There was something of a party in 
the country that applauded the doctrines and the doings 
of the extreme Jacobins ; but it does not seem to have 




EDMUND BURKE. 



554 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [17S9-1793 

been formidable at any time. Generally, from the day 
that the Jacobins won control of the Revolution, English 
sympathy with it was repelled. 

363. Tory Reaction. The repulsion and alarm ex- 
cited by the ferocity of the Jacobin spirit, even before 
its "reign of terror" began, produced an unfortunate 
revival of extreme Toryism in the temper and sentiment 
of the classes which ruled England in that day. A liberal 
disposition toward ideas of political and social improve- 
ment which had been growing up was suddenly beaten 
down, and even Pitt, who had been eager for parliamen- 
tary reform, had no longer any ear for proposals of 
change. What was worse, he allowed himself to be 
driven by the Tory panic of 1792-93 into measures of 
violence against a few English Jacobinical or republican 
societies, which do not seem to have been strong enough 
at any time to cause reasonable alarm. 

364. The War with Revolutionary France. But Pitt 
had no wish to interfere with events in France, and he 
strove to keep England out of the war which the violent 
master-spirits in that country were forcing upon their 
neighbors. It was from France, not England, that the 
declaration of war came, in February, 1 793 ; and the 
declaration was made because French republicans were 
mistakenly led to suppose that England was eager for a 
revolutionary rising like their own. 

For a year past, France had been at war with Austria 
and Prussia, and now a coalition of those powers with 
England, Holland, and Spain was formed. England's 
part in the war which followed was performed mainly, as 
usual, by her navy and her money, and nothing but the 
TheCoaii- great subsidies that she paid them kept the 
tlon " armies of her allies in the field ; for the French 

had amazing success. British forces were joined with 



i79i-i795] CONFLICT WITH THE REVOLUTION. 555 

Austrian, Prussian, and Dutch in the defence of Holland, 
and shared defeat with them ; but where British and 
French fleets met, as they did on the French coast, in 
June, 1794, the victory was sure to be on the British 
side. The French were then nearly powerless at sea. 
Their distant colonies were at the mercy of the English 
navy, which seized them, one by one, during the year 
1795. The colonies of Holland, then subject to France, 
— Cape Colony, Ceylon, and the Spice Islands, — suf- 
fered the same fate. 

In 1795, Prussia and Spain deserted the Coalition and 
Holland had been overcome. In the following spring, 
the Terrorists in France having been overthrown and the 
government of the Directory set up, proposals of peace 
were made by England, and refused. They were renewed 
a few months later, and again they failed. Napoleon 
Bonaparte had begun his astonishing campaign against 
the Austrians in Italy (see page 483), and great plans 
for striking England through Ireland had been formed. 

365. Ireland. Ireland had gained nothing by the 
independence given to its Parliament ; possibly its condi- 
tion had been made even worse. The Parliament was 
an odious body, composed mostly of men who bought 
their seats, or who held them subject to a landlord's 
commands. It did not represent even the Protestants 
of Ireland ; the Catholics had no voice in it at all. It 
executed the will of a small, utterly selfish class. The 
Presbyterians of Ulster suffered scarcely less than the 
Catholics of Connaught ; and a movement was started in 
their ranks to form a Protestant and Catholic combina- 
tion for accomplishing some reform. This gave rise to 
an association, called the Society of United Irishmen, 
founded in 1791 by a Protestant barrister of Belfast, 
Theobald Wolfe Tone, which sought to obtain a better 



556 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1793-1797 

representation of the people in Parliament, by strictly 
legal means. 

Pitt saw the need of answering these demands in Ire- 
land, and he forced its Parliament, in 1 793, to pass an act 
which allowed Catholics to vote for members of Parlia- 
ment, but still barred them from seats in it, and from of- 
fices and places of trust. He had more in contemplation, 
and attempted it two years later ; but the bigotry of the 
king and of the Tories who surrounded Pitt was roused, 
and they tied his hands. Then Wolfe Tone and other 
Irish political reformers who had worked in lawful ways 
became conspirators, in sheer despair. The United Irish- 
men became a secret revolutionary society, and Tone, 
compelled to fly, made his way to France, and there per- 
suaded the Directory to send the able General Hoche, 
with a great fleet and 15,000 or 20,000 men, 

The 

French with arms for 40,000 more, to liberate Ireland 
from English rule. The expedition sailed from 
Brest in December, 1796, only to be scattered, as the 
Spanish Armada had been, by a storm, and it returned 
with nothing done. But a reign of terror had been pro- 
duced in Ireland by the excitements of the time. Ris- 
ings and outrages committed by some of the Catholic 
peasantry were retaliated with a cruelty that nobody can 
defend, and a state of civil war prevailed, between the 
Protestant society of "Orangemen," formed in 1795, and 
similar societies on the Catholic side. 

Twice in 1797, the French government renewed its 
undertaking of an invasion of Ireland, or England, or 
both, with Spanish and Dutch fleets added to its own. 
The first was frustrated by Admiral Jervis and Commo- 
dore Nelson, who defeated the Spanish fleet, in Febru- 
ary, off Cape St. Vincent, and drove it back to Cadiz ; 
the second, in October, was ended more decisively in a 



1797-1798] CONFLICT WITH THE REVOLUTION. 557 

great fight at Camperdown, where Admiral Duncan de- 
stroyed or captured most of the Dutch ships. 
Hopeless of foreign help, the United Irishmen down sea 
then planned a general rising on their own part, 
to take place in May, 1798. The plot was betrayed, the 
leaders were arrested and executed, and those who took 
arms were crushed at Vinegar Hill and in some minor 
fights. 

366. Distressed State of England. England was 
now in a state of great distress. The cost of her own 
army and navy, the enormous subsidies paid to her allies, 
the rapid increase of debt, the closing of many markets 
for her products, combined with several poor harvests, 
brought a cruel crisis at last. The country was drained 
of money, and a suspension of payments in coin occurred, 
in February, 1797, which lasted for twenty- Mutiny in 
two years. At about the same time a mutiny thefleet - 
broke out among the sailors of the navy, who held the 
very life of the nation in their hands. It had been 
caused by sore grievances, which the government cor- 
rected promptly, and wise treatment overcame it almost 
before the enemies of England knew that it had occurred. 

Bonaparte, flushed with his triumphs in Italy, had now 
planned to strike England in the east, and had gone to 
plant the forces of France in Egypt, from which point 
they might hope to lend aid to the native enemies of the 
English in Hindustan. He was already in correspond- 
ence with Tippoo, the son and successor of Hyder Ali 
in Mysore (see section 357), and his plans promised well 
when, in May, 1798, he landed an army in Egypt and 
mastered that country in a single fight. But, unless he 
could likewise be master of the sea between Egypt and 
France, he could not hope to make his project succeed, 
and that mastery was snatched from him by the great 



558 



ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [179S-1800 



Englisn sea-captain, Lord Nelson, who attacked and de- 
Battie of stroyed his fleet (August, 1798), in Aboukir Bay, 
the Nile. near one f tf\e mouths of the Nile. Bonaparte 
pushed on into Syria, but was stopped at Acre, where an 
English fleet, under Sir Sidney Smith, gave such help 
to the Turkish garrison that it held the town until he 
gave up the siege (April, 1799). A few weeks later, 
Tippoo, the ally he intended to aid in India, was slain 
and his capital taken by an English force. 

367. The Irish Union, and the Resignation of Pitt. 
Pitt had become convinced that the terrible evils and 
troubles of Ireland could be cured only by uniting that 
kingdom with Great Britain, in the manner of the union 

of Scotland with 
England, under one 
Parliament and one 
system of law. He 
might have accom- 








plished the cure if 
he had been able to 
make his measure 
complete, by open- 
ing the greater Par- 
the union jack. irish flag before li ame nt to Catholics, 

and by emancipating 
them generally from the political disabilities under which 
they were kept ; but he failed in that part of his plan. 
The Act of Union was carried through the Irish Parlia- 
ment, in February, 1800, by corruption, it is said, and 
sanctioned in England the same year. "The United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland " became the style 
of the British realm on the 1st day of January, 1801. 
But when Pitt then attempted to bring forward the bill 
for " Catholic emancipation," which he had led the people 



i8oi] CONFLICT WITH THE REVOLUTION. 559 

of that faith to expect, he found himself made powerless 
once more by the immovable bigotry of the king ; where- 
upon he resigned. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

362. English Attitude toward the French Revolution. 

Topic. 

i. Representative attitudes of Pitt, Burke, and Fox. 

References. — Green, 800-803. Prison reform: Green, 740, 741 ; 
Colby, 261-264; Traill, v. 482-486, vi. 230-233, 433-436 ; Lecky, 
vi. 255-261. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Show what the institution of feudal- 
ism had to do in preparation for the French Revolution. (2.) 
Draw a parallel between England and France in modifying feu- 
dalism and in finally casting it off. (Johnson, N. E., 162-164.) 
(3.) Give some description of the condition of France. (Green, 
797: 798, 800.) (4.) How far was Louis XIV. responsible for 
this ? (5.) What event outside of France quickened the out- 
break of the Revolution? (Montague, 191.) (6.) What intel- 
lectual influence within France worked to the same end ? 

363. Tory Reaction. 

Topics. 

1. Revival of Toryism due to French Revolution. 

2. Pitt's part in the reaction. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 825-828; Traill, v. 370-371; Tas- 
well-Langmead, 765, 766. Suspension of specie payments : 
Gardiner, iii. 835; Bright, iii. 1191-1193; Gibbins, 172-174; 
Thursfield, Pitt, ch. viii. ; Bagehot, Lombard Street, 175-178; 
Gilbart on Banking, i. 46-60; Cunningham, ii. 555-557. 

Research" Questions. — (1.) What was the "Reign of Terror"? 
(Guest, 543.) (2.) Why did the English consider the execution 
of Louis XVI. of France worse than the execution of Charles I. 
of England ? (3.) What novel of Dickens describes the " Reign 
of Terror"? (4.) What legislation in England had put a stop to 
vindictive imprisonment ? (5.) What effect had the Terror on 
this act? (Traill, v. 490.) 

364. The War with Revolutionary France. 
Topics. 

1. Pitt's policy. 



560 CONFLICT WITH THE REVOLUTION 

2. The Coalition and British success on the sea. 

3. Unsuccessful overtures for peace. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 11 67-1 187. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What two reasons had France for 
making war on other nations? (Gardiner, iii. 824, 825.) (2.) 
What was the condition of Ireland at this time ? (Gardiner, iii. 
831-834; Bright, iii. 1 199-1204.) 

365. Ireland. 
Topics. 

1. State of Irish representation. 

2. The Society of United Irishmen. 

3. Pitt's attempt at relief and its results. 

4. Attempted invasion from France and Irish reign of terror. 

5. Camperdown sea fight and United Irishmen crushed. 
References. — Rosebery, Pitt, ch. xi. 

366. Distressed State of England. 
Topics. 

1. Distress in England and mutiny in the navy. 

2. Bonaparte in Egypt and the battle of the Nile. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 835-S38. Nelson : Gardiner, iii. 

844, 845, 851-854; Bright, iii. 1 172, 1220, 1 232-1 234, 1 262-1 265; 
Colby, 281-284; Mahan, Life of Nelson; Southey, Life of Nel- 
son. 
Research Questions. — (1.) With what sort of money did Ping- 
land pay her allies ? (2.) How is the amount of coin in a coun- 
try affected by foreign payments ? (3.) What is meant by sus- 
pending payment in coin? (4.) Has this ever occurred in the 
United States? (5.) When ? (6.) What is the effect on prices of 
a scarcity of money? (7.) What sort of products become very 
dear in time of war ? (8.) Who suffer most from this ? (9.) Why 
did Napoleon attack India rather than Canada? 

367. The Irish Union, and the Resignation of Pitt. 
Topics. 

1. Pitt's plans for settling Irish troubles. 

2. The Act of Union passed. 

3. " Catholic emancipation " bill fails and Pitt resigns. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 842; Bright, iii. 1199-1219, 1229, 

1230; Green, 81 1-818; Rosebery, Pitt, chs. xi.-xiii. ; Montague, 
186-188; H. Taylor, ii. 514, 515; May, ii. ch. xvi.; Lecky, viii. 

394 s qq- 



SURVEY OF GENERAL HISTORY. 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The Transformation of t/ie World. In the later part of the 
eighteenth century, a new epoch in history was entered, — an 
epoch marked by many distinctions, but most strikingly by 
what may be called the transformation of the world. The 
generations before that time, whether ancient or modern, had 
found the world in which they lived much the same, so far as 
concerns the common conditions of life ; but for us of the 
present age it has been utterly transformed. Its distances 
mean nothing that they formerly did ; its dividing seas and 
mountains have none of their old effect ; its terrifying pesti- 
lences have been half subdued, by discovery of the germs 
from which they spring ; its very storms, by being sentinelled, 
have lost half their power to surprise us in our travels or our 
work. Netting the earth with steam and electric railways, 
seaming it with canals, wire-stringing it with telegraphic and 
telephonic lines ; ferrying its oceans with swift, steam-driven 
ships ; ploughing, planting, harvesting, spinning, weaving, knit- 
ting, sewing, writing, printing, doing everything, with cunning 
machines and with tireless forces borrowed from coal mines 
and from waterfalls, men are making a new world for them- 
selves out of that in which they lived at the dawning of the 
era of mechanism and steam. 

These, however, are but outward features of the change 
that is being wrought in the world. Socially, politically, 
morally, it has been undergoing, in this epoch, a deeper 
change. The growth of fellow-feeling that began in the last 
century has been an increasing growth. It has not ended 
war, nor the passions that cause war, but it is rousing an 



562 GENERAL HISTORY. 

opposition which gathers strength every year, and it is forcing 
nations to settle their disputes by arbitration, more and more. 
It has made democratic institutions of government so common 
that the few arbitrary governments now remaining in civilized 
countries seem disgraceful to the people who endure them so 
long. It has broken many of the old yokes of conquest, and 
revived the independence of many long-subjugated states. 
It has swept away unnatural boundary lines, which separated 
peoples of kindred language and race. It is pressing long- 
neglected questions of right and justice on the attention of 
all classes of men, everywhere, and requiring that answers 
shall be found. 

And, still, even these are but minor effects of the prodigious 
change that the nineteenth century has brought into the 
experience of mankind. Far beyond them all in importance 
are the new conceptions of the universe, the new suggestions 
and inspirations to all human thought, that science has been 
giving in these later years. If we live in a world that is 
different from that which our ancestors knew, it is still more 
the fact that we think of a different universe, and feel differ- 
ently in our relations to it. 

In all views, therefore, it seems to be plain that an extraor- 
dinary period in human history is being passed through at 
the present time, under conditions of life, of action, and of 
thought so utterly changed that the outcome is not to be cal- 
culated from any experience in the past. 

The Napoleonic Wars. The first fifteen years of the nine- 
teenth century were mostly filled with wars fought on all 
sides against Napoleon, who aspired to make himself master 
of the European world. In 1804, he dropped the pretence of 
republicanism, and crowned himself, in France as emperor, in 
Italy as king. Then he planned a great invasion of England, 
and when his plan was frustrated, by the naval victory of Lord 
Nelson at Trafalgar (see section 370), he turned the army 
he had prepared for it against Austria and Russia, which 
were allied with England, and vanquished their united forces 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 563 

at Austerlitz. From that hour his ambition overleaped every 
bound. He placed one of his brothers on the throne of 
Naples and another on the throne of Holland ; his sisters 
became princesses, his generals became dukes. Southern 
Germany underwent a reconstruction at his hands. The 
ancient Holy Roman Empire (see pages 53 and 131) ceased, 
even as a fiction, to exist, and the reigning emperor, Francis 
II., resigned the venerable title it gave and took that of 
Emperor of Austria, instead. 

The Overthrow and the Reconstruction of Prussia. Germany 
in general submitted to Napoleon's commands ; but Prussia 
flamed out in a rash declaration of war (October, 1806), and 
was crushed under the feet of a conqueror who had no spark 
of generous feeling in his soul. With all his genius, Napoleon 
Bonaparte was as coarse in nature as a boor, and seemed 
to delight in insolent uses of his power. He indulged it in 
Prussia and in Germany at large with fatal consequences to 
himself. The German spirit was roused, not broken, by the 
humiliations it had to endure, and Prussia, especially, was 
wakened to a new life. A number of great statesmen began 
a quiet work of national reconstruction which had astonishing 
results. Serfdom, lingering until that late time, was swept 
away ; the school system which has educated the Prussians 
beyond their neighbors was founded ; the military system 
which has made them a nation of soldiers was organized ; in 
every way the career that Prussia has realized since was pre- 
pared for, then and there. 

77/,? Fall of Napoleon. Napoleon, meantime, was being led 
by a mad ambition into undertakings beyond his power. He 
had begun a futile attempt to suppress all trade and com- 
munication between England and the continent (see section 
372) ; and he had made the more ruinous mistake of endeav- 
oring to place his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain. 
The Spaniards resisted ; England sent armies, under the 
Duke of Wellington, to their help, and the seven years of 
obstinate war that followed, in the Spanish peninsula (1808- 



564 GENERAL HISTORY. 

18 14), were fatally weakening to France. For a few years 
Napoleon seemed to be irresistible, but the end of his power 
to hector Europe was drawing near. Having quarrelled with 
the Tsar, who became his ally in 1807, he led a great army 
to Moscow, in 18 12, and there his downfall began. The 
Muscovites burned their city, and he was driven to a winter 
retreat, in which all but a wretched remnant of his host was 
slaughtered or perished of starvation and cold. Then Ger- 
many rose against him, joined by Russia and Austria, while 
Wellington expelled his forces from Spain and crossed the 
Pyrenees into France. Assailed on all sides and driven to 
Paris, he gave up his throne (April, 18 14), and the Bourbon 
monarchy was restored. Napoleon was given the island of 
Elba as a small principality, and retired to it until the follow- 
ing spring, when he reappeared suddenly in France. He was 
welcomed by army and people, and the Bourbon court fled. 
For a few weeks he was emperor again ; but the powers 
which had dethroned him were not to be so defied. Their 
decree against him was made final by his defeat at Waterloo, 
and he was sent to captivity on the island of St. Helena for 
life. 

The Holy Alliance. The sovereigns whose armies had 
broken Napoleon down assumed authority to rearrange every- 
thing he had disturbed. In a general congress at Vienna, 
they and their representatives undertook a new settlement of 
things, entirely in the interest of ruling families, and without 
the least regard for the welfare and rights of the people at 
large. The Bourbons were restored in Spain, Naples, and 
Sicily, as well as in France. The King of Sardinia recovered 
his dominions, and all the little Austrian despots of Italy 
were brought back. In Germany, as nearly as possible, the 
old bad state of things was patched up anew. A very neat 
map of reconstructed Europe was made, in fact, at Vienna, 
and the Tsar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, and the King 
of Prussia entered into a " Holy Alliance " for the keeping of 
the map as they had made it. 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 565 

The Revolutions 0/1820-1830. But a spirit stronger than the 
Holy Alliance had got abroad in the world, and it soon began 
to shake the Vienna arrangement of things. Spain set the 
revolutionary example, in 1820, followed by Italy in the same 
year, and, though both movements were put down by the 
Alliance, they gave independence to the Spanish colonies in 
America, which revolted, with encouragement from England 
and the United States. In 182 1, the Greeks rose against 
their Turkish oppressors, and won freedom after struggling 
for eight years. In 1830, there were many outbreaks. France 
expelled the reigning king, Charles X., and gave his crown to 
another Bourbon, of the Orle'ans branch, who promised a 
more constitutional rule. Belgium broke away from Holland, 
to which it had been tied ; constitutions were extorted from 
several German princes ; Russian Poland made a brave but 
vain attempt to burst its bonds ; unsuccessful risings occurred 
again in some of the Italian states ; and then the English 
people, happiest of all in political circumstances, won their 
first great parliamentary reform (see section 388). 

The Revolutions 0/1848. From that time until 1848 there 
was general quiet on the surface in Europe, with an increasing 
heat of rebellious feeling underneath. In 1848, the storm of 
revolution broke forth, first in Italy, then sweeping into 
France, and through Germany to Austria and Hungary, even 
shaking the Swiss republic, where it produced a new consti- 
tution, after civil war. In France, the Bourbon monarchy 
was overthrown finally, and a republican government was 
reestablished, but not to endure. In Italy, the revolt, most 
promising at first, failed grievously in the end. In Hungary, 
it was crushed by Russian and Austrian armies combined. 
In Germany, it resulted in a Prussian constitution, and in a 
general loosening of the old hard lines of arbitrary govern- 
ment ; but the greater fruits it might have had were lost for 
want of practical statesmen, instead of bookish men, in the 
lead. 

The Second Empire in France. Louis Napoleon, a nephew 



566 GENERAL HISTORY. 

of the first Napoleon, was elected president of the new re- 
public of France. In imitation of his uncle, he brought about 
its overthrow (185 1), and set up a Second Empire, which was 
a rotten sham. For eighteen years he contrived to make 
himself a conspicuous figure in affairs. In 1854, he drew 
England with him into a needless and badly managed war 
with Russia (the Crimean War, so called), for the defence of 
the Turks. 

The Unification of Italy. In 1859, Louis Napoleon found 
another and better opportunity for war. He led an army 
to the assistance of Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, who 
had undertaken to drive the Austrians from those states 
in northern Italy which they oppressed. In great battles at 
Magenta and Solferino, Austria was defeated, and Napoleon 
then closed the war abruptly, by a treaty which gave Lom- 
bardy to Sardinia, but left Venetia and other Italian states 
still under the Austrian yoke. Patriotic Italians would not 
accept that meagre result. Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and 
Romagna demanded annexation to Sardinia, and obtained it 
in i860. Garibaldi, a great champion of liberty, raised an 
army of volunteers and drove the Bourbon king and court 
from Sicily and Naples in that same year. Both were annexed 
to the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel, which then became the 
kingdom of Italy, with a national parliament and a liberal 
constitution. Six years later, Venetia was added, and in 1870 
the papal states were taken, which made the Italian kingdom 
complete, with its seat of government at Rome. 

Events in America. Meantime the great conflict of civil 
war had occurred in the United States (1861-65), and Louis 
Napoleon, always craving opportunities to play some showy 
part in the world, desired to interfere in it ; but he failed to 
persuade England to join him, and did not venture to act 
alone. In Mexico, however, he saw what seemed to be a safe 
opening for his intrusive hand, while the United States were 
busied with troubles of their own. He undertook, accord- 
ingly, to set up an empire in that country, with an Austrian 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 567 

archduke on the throne. The American government pro- 
tested vainly, until the civil war ended ; but when it began 
then, in 1867, to move troops towards the Mexican border, 
the French forces in that country were speedily called home ; 
after which the Mexican empire lasted two months and a 
week. The unfortunate Austrian prince, Maximilian, over- 
come by the Mexicans, was put to death ; a republican govern- 
ment was restored, and Mexico, after a few disturbed years, 
settled down to a peaceful and prosperous career. 

The Unificatio?i of Germa?iy. The liberation and unification 
of Italy was the first of several great movements of political 
union which have been the most remarkable facts of the last 
forty years. The next to occur was in Germany, where it was 
begun, in 1866, by a sharply fought "seven weeks' war" 
between Prussia and Austria, which established the leadership 
of the former in German affairs. The fruits of the Prussian 
victory were used with surpassing force and skill, by a re- 
markable statesman, Otto von Bismarck, acting under an able 
king, William I. The Prussian kingdom was enlarged, absorb- 
ing Hanover and several duchies, and a North German Con- 
federation of neighboring states was formed, with the King of 
Prussia at its head. 

The Franco-Prussian War. The sudden rise of Prussia to 
a rank among the great powers woke the jealousy of the 
French emperor, and he seemed to feel called upon to check 
her growing influence over the other German states. On the 
other hand, Bismarck, who knew, as Louis Napoleon did not, 
the hollowness of the French empire, was more than willing 
to give him the opportunity for war that he sought. Naturally, 
under those circumstances, hostilities broke out, in 1870, 
between Prussia and France, and France was beaten down 
more completely than Austria had been. In six weeks from 
the day that he sent his declaration of war, Louis Napoleon 
was a captive and the imperial government had ceased to 
exist. In less than seven months from that fatal day, the 
Prussians were in Paris, dictating hard terms of peace. They 



568 GENERAL HISTORY. 

took back Alsace, which France had wrested from Germany 
by war two centuries before, and they wrung from the French 
nation a payment of no less than five thousand millions of 
francs ($1,000,000,000), as indemnity for the war. 

The Third Republic in France. On the ruins of the fallen 
French empire, a republic was once more raised — the Third 
Republic in France. At the outset it had a fearful struggle 
for life with the mob of Paris, led by fanatical and violent 
men. At the cost of much bloodshed, after a siege of nearly 
two months, the rebellion of the Communists, as they were 
called, was overcome, and a republican government was 
established, which has endured to the present time. 

Creation of the German Empire. In Germany, the result 
of the Franco-Prussian war was the creation of a new Ger- 
manic empire, in which the nationalization of the German 
people was made complete. It is a federal empire, in which 
three kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, and Wurtemburg) and 
numerous duchies are united, under a written constitution, 
and the King of Prussia, with the added title of " German 
Emperor," is president of the whole. 

The Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Austrian empire had 
already been made a federal empire, organized in like manner, 
as one of the consequences of the defeat sustained in 1866, 
Hungary being placed on an equal footing with Austria, each 
having its own constitution, under a federal constitution 
which covers both. 

Later European Events. Since the Franco-Prussian war of 
1870, the peace of Europe has been broken, by hostilities 
within its own border, but once. In 1875, the Christian pro- 
vinces of Turkey began a fresh revolt against the dreadful 
misrule under which they were kept. First, Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, and then Bulgaria, rose in arms, and their 
rebellion was atrociously put down by the Turks. Servia and 
Montenegro declared war in their behalf and were overcome. 
Then Russia, in 1877, espoused their cause, and a fierce war 
occurred, which might have ended the Turkish empire in 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 569 

Europe if the jealousy of other powers had not interfered. 
As it was, the Bulgarians, Bosnians, and Herzegovinians were 
all freed from Turkish rule, the latter two peoples being 
joined to Austria, the former established in a separate state. 

In the Asiatic World. The next war of considerable mag- 
nitude occurred (1894-95) in the farther east, between China 
and Japan. The former proved helplessly weak, the latter 
surprisingly strong and highly advanced in the modern arts 
of war. The opening of Japan to western teaching, and the 
astonishing progress of its people in a wholly new career, are 
to be counted, in fact, among the most notable events in 
recent times. The contrasting decay of the huge Chinese 
empire, and the rapid advance of Russian development in 
Central and Siberian Asia, are giving rise to startling ques- 
tions, that will have their answer in years to come. 

The Spanish-American War, If the politics of the eastern 
world become troubled, our own country is now certain to be 
mixed in their complications, since the results of its success- 
ful war with Spain (1898) have placed it in possession of one 
of the great archipelagoes of the east. A new and strange leaf 
in American history has been turned by that war, opening 
surely to grave consequences, which no man can foresee. 

In Africa. Until within a score of years, the vast continent 
of Africa had been mostly unknown or forgotten in history 
since the Ptolemies reigned on the Nile. Now, the rivalries 
of Europe have invaded it, and Africa has suddenly become 
the conspicuous arena of their ambitious strife for empire and 
trade. Very nearly the entire continent is occupied or con- 
trolled by England, France, Germany, Belgium, and Portugal, 
the claims and possessions of England forming an almost 
unbroken line of territory from Egypt to the Cape of Good 
Hope. It is natural and significant that the latest war fought 
on a great scale in the nineteenth century (the British- Boer 
war of 1899-1900) should have its theatre in Africa, and that 
its true cause should be found in the new value attached to 
possessions in that part of the world. 



570 GENERAL HISTORY. 

The Peace Congress. While Europe has been kept at peace 
within itself for more than a score of years, its leading powers 
have been watching each other with jealousy and dread, and 
their armies and navies have been growing frightfully in mag- 
nitude and cost. The burden of their maintenance presses 
so hard that, in August, 1898, the Tsar of Russia asked the 
nations of the world to consult together and find a common 
means of avoiding the continual preparation for war. The 
congress for that purpose which he invited has been held 
(1899), and, though it did not accomplish the grand aim of 
the Tsar, it set up a goal towards which civilized men are 
moving, and it has quickened the steps of their march. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON. 

George III. 1800-1820. 

368. France fallen under Napoleon. When Pitt re- 
signed office, a new and greater trial of the strength 
of England was being prepared in France. Bonaparte, 
returning from Egypt in the fall of 1799, had been able 
to overthrow the feeble government of the Directory 
(see section 366), and to make himself, under the title of 
First Consul, the absolute ruler of the state. He found 
the country assailed by a new coalition, of Russia and 
Austria with Great Britain, and its military prestige 
very seriously impaired. By flattering Paul, the half- 
mad Russian Tsar, and by a brilliant campaign against 
the Austrians in Italy, he broke up the coalition, made 
peace with Austria, at Luneville, and England was left to 
oppose him alone. No other obstacles in his path, then 
or afterwards, were dreaded so much by the rising despot 
of Europe as the money, the navy, and the stubborn pub- 
lic spirit of the British people ; and the whole force of 
his genius and will was bent upon the breaking of their 
power. 

369. The Peace of Amiens and the Renewal of War. 
But England, with the long arm of her navy, was striking 
blows which warned her enemy to gird himself before 
he engaged with her in mortal strife. In Sep- capture of 
tember of 1800, she drove the French from the Malta - 
great citadel of Malta in the Mediterranean. In the next 



572 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1801-1803 

March, she expelled them from Egypt. In April, her irre- 
sistible Nelson seized the fleet of the Danes, in the harbor 
of their own capital, and broke up a new league that had 
been formed by the northern powers, against British at- 
tempts to stop the carrying of French goods in neutral 
ships. Napoleon being willing then to gain an interval 
of peace, in which to make further preparations for war, 
and the desire for peace in England having become very 
strong, a treaty was signed at Amiens, in March, 1802, 
which gave a breathing spell to both. England surren- 
dered all her conquests beyond the sea except Trinidad 
and Ceylon, and George III. solemnly gave up the ridicu- 
lous title of " King of France," which English kings had 
retained since the days of Edward III. Cape Colony was 
restored to Holland, but retaken four years later, after 
war began anew, and has been an English possession 
ever since. 

It was only a brief breathing time of peace that the 
two countries enjoyed. Quarrels over Malta, and over 
offensive articles in English newspapers, brought war 
again, in May, 1803. Napoleon opened it dishonorably, by 
seizing some 10,000 British travellers, men and women, 
Threat- wn0 na d vi sited France during the peace, keep- 
sionVf 1 ™ m & them prisoners for years. At the same 
England, time, he began immense preparations for invad- 
ing England, with a great army, to be assembled at 
Boulogne, and to be protected in crossing the Channel 
by fleets of France and Spain. The vast work of pre- 
paration went slowly on through many months ; while 
the English increased their navy and put 300,000 volun- 
teers under arms. 

370. Trafalgar and Austerlitz. — The Death of Pitt. 
The ministry which had succeeded that of Pitt failed 
to win public confidence, and its leader, Mr. Addington 



1S04-1S05] CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON. 



573 



(afterwards Viscount Sidmouth), was forced to give way 
to the trusted Pitt, who returned to the direction of 
affairs (May, 1804). Before Napoleon (now bearing the 
title of Emperor) was ready to strike his blow from 
Boulogne, Pitt had organized a new coalition against 
him, in which 
Russia, Austria, 
and Sweden were 
joined. 

But the great 
blow was never 
struck ; the en- 
ergy of Nelson had 
paralyzed the arm 
which threatened 
it, by a counter 
blow. In Napo- 
leon's plan, the 
French and Span- 
ish fleets were to 
draw Nelson away 
to the West In- 
dies, by threaten- 
ing movements in that direction, then double suddenly 
back to the English Channel and guard the crossing of 
French troops. The device was tried, in the spring of 
1805, with enough success to carry the watchful Nelson 
away upon a futile chase ; but in every other 

1 • r m 1 tm r 1 i Napoleon 

particular it tailed. Ine master ot the grand at 
army at Boulogne waited and watched in vain ou ° em 
for the return of his fleets. They were not in a condi- 
tion to be kept together, or to make speed. Nelson was 
back, and the defensive navy of England was concen- 
trated again, before that of France could be got in readi- 




LORD NELSON. 



574 



ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 



[1805 



ness to make its attempt. When it did sail for the 
Channel, it was attacked and almost destroyed, in the 
famous naval fight off Cape Trafalgar (October 21, 1805), 
where Nelson died his heroic death. No army or fleet 
has been assembled since that decisive day to invade the 
well-guarded British Isle. 

Even before the fleets came together in battle, Napo- 
leon had seen the failure of his plans, and, by making 
a sudden change in them, with that marvellous energy 
in which he surpassed all other men, he snatched a 
victory on the Danube out of the defeat that he suf- 
fered on the English strait. Moving his army with 
incredible swiftness from the western coast of France 
to the heart of the Austrian empire, he surrounded 

40,000 Austrian 
troops and took 
them prisoners, 
at Ulm, on the 
19th of October, 
entered Vienna 
on the 14th of 
November, and 
defeated the com- 
bined armies of 
Austria and Rus- 
sia, on the 2d of 
December, in the 
great battle of 
Austerlitz. The 
Third Coalition 
against him was 
broken up. 

Pitt, who was ill in health and worn down with his 
labors and cares, never rallied from the shock that was 




1 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 



1S06-1S07] CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON. 575 

given him by the news of Austerlitz. He died on the 
23d of January, 1806. 

371. The Ministry of all the Talents and its Tory 
Successor. Circumstances, on the death of Pitt, com- 
pelled the king to accept a ministry made up from several 
parties or factions, and styled the " Ministry of all the 
Talents," with Fox and Lord Grenville at its head. Fox, 
whom the king hated and had kept from office for years, 
was a statesman of brilliant talents, large and warm sym- 
pathies, and many traits that have endeared his memory, 
though his private life was ill-spent. The opportunity 
that now came to him for ministerial work was Dea thof 
very brief, for he died in the same year, after Fox - 
making vain attempts to arrange peace with Napoleon, — 
attempts which only revealed to him the perfidy of that 
terrible man of the sword. Fox lived long enough to feel 
assured that a bill for the suppression of the slave trade, 
which he had pressed, would pass Parliament, as it did 
early in 1807. 

The question of relief to the Catholics, from some 
at least of the many disabilities under which they were 
kept, pressed more arid more sternly on the conscience 
of honorable men ; but the king shut his ears to it, and 
demanded of the ministry, at last, a written pledge that 
the subject should never be touched. They resigned in 
consequence, and a strongly Tory ministry was change of 
formed, nominally under the Duke of Portland, mmistr y- 
but with abler men included, — Canning, Castlereagh, 
Eldon, Perceval, in the number, — all of whom became 
notable afterwards in public affairs. 

372. British Orders in Council and the Continental 
System of Napoleon. By this time Napoleon 

had beaten Prussia to the earth (see page 563), 

and had defeated and humbled the Russian emperor, 



576 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1806 

when he came to her defence. Almost the whole of 
Europe was subject to his commands, and he felt power- 
ful enough to attack England, which his armies could not 
reach, in a mode that might starve her industries, ruin 
her trade, and destroy her power by a general blight. 

In striving to stop the use of neutral ships for French 
commerce, the English had given great offence, as men- 
tioned heretofore, to some of the European powers, and 
even more to the Americans, who were getting a rich 
profit from the trade which the Napoleonic wars threw 
into their hands. By" what are known as orders in coun- 
cil, the British government had declared the whole coast 
of western Europe, from Brest to the Elbe, to 
of Euro- be in a state of blockade, even where no Brit- 

pean ports. . . . , n . 

ish war vessels were present to watch, and it 
claimed the right to seize, wherever found, any neutral 
ship that had sailed from or that sought to enter a port 
on that coast. It further claimed the right to search 
vessels of all nations, to learn whence they came, whither 
they were bound, and what cargoes they bore. The 
English were thus making a very arrogant use of their 
command of the sea. 

Napoleon now believed that he was able, with his 
power on land, to turn this mode of warfare against Eng- 
land and destroy her whole trade with the European 
world. Accordingly, in November, 1806, he issued, from 
Berlin, a decree which declared the British islands to be 
in a state of blockade, prohibited all commerce with 
them, and commanded that all merchandise and 
and Milan manufactures of Great Britain and her colonies, 
decrees. and ^ British subjects, should be seized wher- 
ever found. The English government retaliated by new 
orders in council, which extended the earlier ones to 
every port from which British ships were shut out. Na- 



1807] CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON. 577 

poleon answered by a new decree from Milan, increasing 
the rigor of that from Berlin ; and thus the battle of 
belligerent commercial decrees, all striking at the trade 
of peaceful people, and at that of the Americans most of 
all, went on for several years. 

Napoleon's " continental system " of commercial war- 
fare with England, as it was called, failed entirely to 
accomplish what he hoped. It injured, but it did not 




STAGE COACH IN 1804. 

ruin, English manufactures and trade, for the reason 
that even the power of Napoleon could not suppress, on 
any part of the continent, the smuggled commerce with 
Great Britain that went on. He had absolutely no power 
at sea. He had expected, in 1807, to seize and make 
use of the Danish fleet ; but the English government 
forestalled his design by committing the same outrage 
themselves. Everywhere in Europe there was suffer- 
ing from needs which that continent could not supply to 



578 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1807-1808 

itself, and nothing in his hard and insolent use of power 
put more bitterness into the hatred of his yoke than the 
Berlin and Milan decrees. 

373. Beginning of Quarrel with the United States. 
Equally outraged by the British orders in council and by 
the decrees of Napoleon, and not feeling strong enough 
for a war with either or both, the government of the 
United States made a singular attempt to retaliate, in 
1807, by an Embargo Act, which forbade the departure 
of vessels from any American to any foreign port. This 
totally deprived all the world of American products, and 
The Em- the deprivation was sorely felt ; but it caused 
bargoAct. no su ff erm g abroad, even in England, that was 
equal to the ruin it wrought at home. In the next year 
an act of non-intercourse with France and England was 
adopted, instead of the general embargo ; and, with in- 
creasing distress from loss of trade, American hostility 
of feeling, especially toward England, grew more intense. 

The offence of England was far more than in the mat- 
ter of interference with neutral trade. The " right of 
search" which she claimed at sea was not only for goods 
that she might seize, but also for sailors whom she might 
The "right claim as English subjects, and impress for ser- 
of search- v j ce - m h er own s hip S When even American 

war vessels were insolently searched for that purpose 
by British ships of greater strength, the feeling excited 
was too intense to be restrained very long from war. 

374. The War in Spain. Intoxicated with power, 
Napoleon had now entered the frenzied courses which 
led him to his fall. He was maddening Germany by his 
grinding oppressions, and was rousing a fierce national 
pride and a desperate resistance in Spain. England be- 
came enlisted in the defence, first of Portugal and then 
of Spain, in 1808, and for the next six years her main 



1808-1812] CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON. 



579 



struggle with the 
great enemy was 
in the field of that 
" Pen insular War 
where Sir John 
Moore, whose 

death is immor- 
talized in English 
verse, fell fight- 
ing victoriously at 
Corunna, though 
fighting in retreat, 
and where Sir 
Arthur Wellesley, 
fresh from con- 
quests in India, 
gained a series of 
great victories — 

Talavera Busaco Arthur wellesley, duke of Wellington. 

Salamanca, Vit- 

toria, Toulouse, and others — which won his peerage, as 

Duke of Wellington, and gave him his fame. 

375. Confirmed Insanity of George III. — Regency 
of the Prince of Wales. In the midst of these events 
(November, 1810), the king became insane again, and 
remained so until the end of his life. The Prince of 
Wales was made regent by a bill passed in the following 
February, and reigned as such for ten years before he 
became king. Canning, Castlereagh, and Portland had 
resigned from the cabinet, in consequence of quarrels, 
some months before, and Perceval had be- 
come the ministerial chief. He remained so tionof 
until his death by murder, at the hands of a 
madman, in 1812, when Lord Liverpool took his place. 




$8o ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1S09-1815 

376. The Overthrow of Napoleon. The crumbling 
of Napoleon's power began with the stubborn resistance 
he encountered in Spain ; though he was able to crush 
Austria once more at Aspern and Wagram (1809), and 
seemed to have the world at his feet. But the life-blood 
of France had been drained by his merciless wars ; Ger- 
many was being silently prepared to rise against him 
with a new spirit and a new strength ; and when, in the 
last months of 1812, he fled back from his mad invasion 
of Russia, strewing the northern snows with the dead of 
a mighty host, his career of bloody triumphs was at an 
end. Then came the tale of defeats, finished by the 
great British and Prussian victory at Waterloo. 

377. War with the United States. During the last 
three years of her conflict with Napoleon, England was 
also at war with the United States. After long and bit- 
ter controversy over the orders in council and the search- 
ing of American ships, the orders were withdrawn by 
the British government, but too late. The exasperated 
Americans had already declared war (June 18, 1812). 
In the fighting that ensued, they had more success at 
sea than on land. Their sailors proved to be better 
trained, their gunnery more accurate, their ships, as a 
rule, better built and better handled, and they won a 
series of naval victories, in battles, for the most part, 
between single ships, that astonished the English, ac- 
customed so long, as they were, to unrivalled prowess at 
sea. 

But in the campaigns on land there was less glory for 
the American arms. Canada was defended against them 
with entire success, and the war wrought no territorial 
The treaty change. As for the disputes over which it 
of Ghent. b e g an> concerning neutral trade and rights of 
search, they were not mentioned in the treaty which 



1800-1815] CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON. 581 

ended the war, signed at Ghent on the 24th of December, 
1 8 14. But practically they were disposed of, since Great 
Britain ceased exercising the questionable rights she had 
claimed. 

378. The Breeding of Democratic Discontent. In 
the period between the ministry of Walpole and the bat- 
tle of Waterloo, England had experienced half a century 
of war and barely twenty-five years of peace. The later 
years of the period had been filled with a struggle that 
was almost for life. It had not devoured the population 
of the country to the horrible extent of the suffering in 
France, but had consumed its wealth. Public debt and 
taxation had been carried to a height never imagined 
as possibilities before. The strain could not have been 
borne if the great inventions which increased production 
had not been brought to the help of English industries 
at this time (see section 361). But, while the wealth 
that supported British wars came largely from those in- 
dustrial improvements, they were likewise the cause of 
much disturbance and distress, which deepened the ordi- 
nary suffering from war ; for the change from hand-labor 
to machine-labor, and from home-work to factory-work, 
left great numbers struggling to live by the old methods, 
and being starved in the hopeless fight. 

So far as British landowners and farmers were con- 
cerned, they should naturally and rightly have been los- 
ers by the peace. During the period of commercial 
blockading, they had had the feeding of the country in 
their own hands, and made the price of food to the peo- 
ple of the towns very high. This had been the chief 
distress of the war, and it ought to have ended with the 
war ; but it did not. The landowning interest, being 
that which controlled mainly the representation in Par- 
liament, was able to put duties on food from abroad, 



582 



ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. . [1800-1820 




WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 



which "protected" British 
farming against competi- 
tion as effectually as the 
blockades of war time had 
done. It had imposed 
such protective duties, in 
a somewhat moderate way, 
by what were known as 
"corn laws" (wheat and 
The corn all other grain 
laws. being called 

"corn") for many years; 
but now it obtained a corn 
law which absolutely prohibited the importation of wheat 
whenever its price fell below 80 shillings (about $20), a 
quarter (eight bushels) ; and that iniquitous law was kept 
untouched for thirteen years by the parliamentary power 
of the landlords, who thus "protected" their high rents. 
Such oppressive class government, in a time of gen- 
eral hardship, stirred up 
democratic feeling in 
England very fast, and 
the demand for a better 
representation of the peo- 
ple in Parliament took on 
a more threatening tone. 
It gathered force from 
the growth of manufac- 
turing towns, and was 
strengthened and embit- 
tered by stupid measures 
Demand of the Tory gov- 
for reform, eminent, which 

tried to put agitation robert burns. 




1775-1820] CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON. 



5§3 



down. There were consequently some years of no little 
disorder, partly political and partly due to riotous out- 
breaks among the suffering hand-weavers, who tried to 
destroy the power-looms and factories, to which they 
attributed their distress. 

This state of things continued until after the close of 
the reign of George III., who died in January, Dea thof 
1820. The prince regent then became king, as George m 
George IV. 

379. Literature of the Period. All feeling, if not 
all thought, would 
seem to have been 
animated by the 
revolutionary ex- 
citements of the 
last two or three de- 
cades in the eigh- 
teenth century, and 
one of its effects 
was to give litera- 
ture a warmer tone. 
The distinction of 
the poetry of Burns, 
Wordsworth, Cole- 
ridge, Scott, is in 
its freedom of form 
and in the frank- 
ness and freshness 

of its spirit, as compared with that of Goldsmith, Gray, 
and Shenstone, in the preceding generation. With a 
deeper tinge of human passion in it, the same gift of 
warmth was passed on to the poetry of Byron, Shelley, 
and Keats. It gave life to the creation of historical 
romance by Sir Walter Scott. It mellowed the rich 




SIR WALTER SCOTT. 



584 ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. [1775-182° 

eloquence of Burke, and even Gibbon's stately narrative 
of the fall of Rome. It makes the essential difference 
between the elegant prose of Addison, the pompous 
prose of Dr. Johnson, and the genial prose of Charles 
Lamb. By the new feeling that came into it, towards 
both nature and man, English literature took on, indeed, 
a remarkably changed character in those late years of 
the eighteenth century and early years of the nineteenth, 
which may be called the revolutionary age. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

368. France fallen under Napoleon. 
Topics. 

1. Napoleon First Consul and new coalition formed. 

2. Coalition broken up and England alone in the opposition. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1 225-1 227. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What was the Directory ? (2.) Why 
could England better afford to be alone in the opposition than 
any other European country ? 

369. The Peace of Amiens and the Renewal of War. 

Topics. 

1. English successes and the Peace of Amiens. 

2. War again, and preparations to invade England. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1236-1241. 

370. Trafalgar and Austerlitz. — The Death of Pitt. 

Topics. 

1. Third coalition against France. 

2. Attempt to deceive Nelson and its result. 

3. Battle of Trafalgar. 

4. Third coalition broken up and Pitt's death. 
References. — Green, 820-822 ; Rosebery, Pitt, ch. iv. 

371. The Ministry of all the Talents and its Tory 
Successor. 
Topics. 

1. Formation of the new ministry. 

2. Fox's character and death. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 585 

3. Ministry dissolved. 
Reference. — Gardiner, iii. S55-S58. 

372. British Orders in Council and the Continental 

System of Napoleon. 
Topics. 

1. Napoleon master of Europe. 

2. British orders in council and rights of search. 

3. Napoleon's Berlin and Milan decrees. 

4. Effect of Napoleon's continental system. 
Reference. — Green, 822-825. 

Research Questions. — (1.) Why did Napoleon's wars give the 
Americans more trade ? (2.) Why does a nation try to stop the 
commerce of another nation with which she is at war? (3.) 
How would such action alienate other nations ? (4.) What sort 
of a trade is a blockade sure to promote? (5.) Why did Eng- 
land suspect that English sailors might be found on American 
ships? (Bright, iii. 1326.) 

373. Beginning of Quarrel with the United States. 
Topics. 

1. Embargo Act and Non-intercourse Act. 

2. Anger at the exercise of the " right to search." 
Reference. — Gardiner, iii. 872, 873. 

374. The War in Spain. 
Topics. 

1. Bonaparte's oppression of Europe. 

2. The Peninsular War. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1 286-1 321. 

Research Questions. — (i.) What great colony had Portugal in 
the western hemisphere ? (2.) Of what use was it to her after 
Napoleon invaded the Spanish Peninsula? (Bright, iii. 1288, 
1289.) (3.) What change in the territory of the United States 
was effected under Napoleon ? 

375. Confirmed Insanity of George III. — Regency of 

the Prince of "Wales. 
Topics. 

1. King's illness and the regency. 

2. Changes in the cabinet. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1 323-1 325. 



586 CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON. 

376. The Overthrow of Napoleon. 
Topics. 

i. Exhaustion of Napoleon's resources. 
2. Russian campaign and the battle of Waterloo. 
References. — Green, 830-832, 834-836. Waterloo : Gardiner, 
iii. 874, Bright, iii. 1339-1346; Guest, 545-548 ; Colby, 296-298 ; 
Creasy, Fifteen Decisive Battles, 344-407. 

377. War with the United States. 
Topics. 

1. American success on the sea, and failure on land. 

2. Treaty of Ghent. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1325-1328. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What unjustifiable act did the Brit- 
ish commit in this war? (Bright, iii. 1327; Green, 833.) (2.) 
What sort of places only can, by the rules of war, be bom- 
barded ? 

378. The Breeding of Democratic Discontent. 
Topics. 

1. Taxation in England and distress caused by inventions. 

2. High price of food after the war and the corn laws. 

3. Effect of this class legislation upon the people. 

4. Death of George III. and succession of George IV. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1 350-1354. 

Research Questions. — (1.) How does machinery confer a bene- 
fit on the world if it deprives people of employment ? (Cunning- 
ham and McArthur, 227.) (2.) In what way is it a benefit to 
employers ? (Cunningham and McArthur, 225.) 

379. Literature of the Period. 

Topics. 

1. Great poets and change in the spirit of poetry. 

2. Effect of the time on prose works. 



THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. 
1820-1899. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE ENDING OF THE RULE OF THE LANDLORDS. 

George IV. — William IV. — Victoria. 1820-1846. 

380. Division among the Tories. The discovery of 
a desperate plot, called the Cato Street conspiracy, for 
the murder of the whole cabinet, and a trial of scanda- 
lous charges which the disreputable king brought against 
his wife, Queen Caroline, were exciting events that 
opened the new reign. 

The Tory ministry was now yielding to the influence 
of its more open-minded men. They were led by George 
Canning and William Huskisson, and opposed by Lord 
Liverpool, Lord Eldon, the " Duke of Wellington (who 
had lately entered the cabinet), and others of less note. 
In 1822, Canning obtained the foreign office and totally 
changed the spirit of the policy which his predecessor, 
Castlereagh, had pursued. Castlereagh had 
labored for the most part with Metternich and foreign 
the Holy Alliance, on the continent, to bind poicy ' 
the hands of the people and support arbitrary govern- 
ments in power (see pages 564, 565). Canning at once 
put England on the popular side, especially in the ques- 
tion between Spain and her revolting American colonies, 
and effectively checked the great imperial conspiracy in 
Europe against popular rights. 



588 



THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. 



[1822-1S28 



Huskisson. 



At the same time, Mr. Huskisson, as president of the 
Board of Trade, began to turn English commercial policy 
in the direction of greater freedom, according 
to the doctrines taught by Adam Smith. Can- 
ning and Huskisson together were able to carry through 
the Commons a bill which moderated the iniquitous corn 
laws, but it failed in the House of Lords. 

381. Canning's Ministry. In the spring of 1827, 

on the death of Lord 
Liverpool, Canning's 
strength in Parliament 
caused him to be raised 
to the head of the min- 
istry ; but Wellington 
and other unbending 
Tories in the cabinet 
refused to serve with 
him, and resigned. 
The seceders included 
Sir Robert Peel, a rising 
statesman, who after- 
wards showed himself 
more open to liberal 
convictions than Can- 
ning himself. To offset the Tory secession, many Whigs 
came to the support of the new premier ; but Canning's 
death, only four months after he rose to the lead, threw 
everything back into its former state. 

382. Wellington's Ministry. For a few months after 
Canning's death the government was carried on by his 
colleagues and followers, under a weak leader, Lord Gode- 
rich, who could not keep unity in their ranks. In Jan- 
uary, 1828, they resigned, and the Duke of Wellington 
was called to the head of affairs. That signified a return 




1S28-1S29] ENDING OF LANDLORD RULE. 589 

of extreme Tories to power ; but even extreme Tories, 
with the stubbornness of Wellington, found it no longer 
possible to hold their old ground. The real states- 
man of the cabinet formed by the duke was Sir Robert 
Peel, who took the lead in the Commons, and whose 
conservative mind was fast receiving new light. To the 
confusion and wrath of a large number in their party, 
the Wellington and Peel ministry took up and carried 
through two urgent measures of reform which they had 
been expected to resist, and submitted to the passage of 
a third. They carried a corn bill, nearly identical with 
that of Canning and Huskisson, which Wellington had 
defeated little more than a year before. They resisted, 
but finally connived at, a partial repeal of those Reform 
venerably intolerant laws, the Corporation and measures - 
Test Acts (see sections 268, 276), so far as to open the 
door of office to Protestants not belonging to the estab- 
lished church. Lastly — most amazing of all — Welling- 
ton himself became urgent for " Catholic emancipation," 
— for the admission, that is, of Roman Catholics to Par- 
liament and to public offices in general, — as the only 
means, in his judgment, of saving Ireland from civil war. 
383. Catholic Emancipation. A great leader had 
arisen among the Catholics in Ireland, and had organized 
them in a formidable association for the pressing of their 
demands. This was Daniel O'Connell, a man of extraor- 
dinary power in oratory and in personal influence, who 
commanded the masses of his countrymen like a king. 
He had caused himself to be elected to a seat in Parlia- 
ment, defeating one of the officers of the gov- Danie i 
ernment, and Parliament was fairly defied to °' Coime11 - 
exclude him, by requiring the oath which he could not, as 
a Catholic, take. Wellington, whose courage none could 
doubt, and Peel, whose cool judgment compelled respect, 



59° THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1S29-1830 

advised their party, and advised the king, that the time 
for yielding on this great question had come. With the 
help of Whigs and Canningites they carried the neces- 
sary bill (April, 1829), though a strong body of the 
Tories fought it obstinately to the last. 

384. Freedom of the Press. Savage attacks by Tory 
newspapers on the Wellington ministry led to vigorous 
prosecutions, which worked a conversion of Tory feeling 
on the subject of freedom for the press, and practically 
ended attempts in England to restrain public criticism 
of the conduct of public affairs. But heavy taxes on 
newspapers and tracts remained to cripple the press, and 
to limit its power for some years. 

385. The First Railways. It was at this time that 
the first convincing success was reached in the use of 
railways for carriages drawn by steam power. During 
several years, George Stephenson, a self-educated engi- 
neer, had been experimenting in the construction of steam 
locomotives, and in 1825 he had completed a short line 
of railway from Stockton to Darlington, in Durham 
county ; but his invention fully triumphed when Liver- 
pool and Manchester were joined by a railway, opened 
with ceremony in September, 1830. The event was 
saddened by an accident which caused the death of Mr. 
Huskisson, the able leader of economic reform. 

The use of steam power in propelling boats had reached 
steam- success some twenty years before, after long 
boats. experimenting by many persons, in America, 

England, and France. 

386. Death of George IV. — Accession of William 
IV. In June, 1830, the king died, and was succeeded by 
his more reputable brother, William, Duke of Clarence, 
who had little ability, biit good intentions, and simple 
and popular ways, The Wellington ministry stayed in 



1830] ENDING OF LANDLORD RULE. 591 

office until November, when it found itself facing, in a 
newly elected Parliament, such a resolute demand for 
parliamentary reform that it felt obliged to give up office 
to the friends of the reform. A cabinet of Whigs and 
Canningites was accordingly formed, under Earl Grey, 
who had been urging action on the subject since 1792. 

387. The First Reform Bill. Agitation for a true re- 
presentation of the people in Parliament had been freshly 



Stephenson's locomotive, " rocket." 
Adopted for use on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 1829. 

stimulated by the Revolution of 1830, in France (see 
page 565). In the great manufacturing cities, like Leeds, 
Birmingham, and Manchester, that were growing up with 
no voice in Parliament, and in the numerous lesser towns 
that had risen since seats in Parliament were assigned, 
there had come to be a population too strong in numbers, 



592 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1S30 

in intelligence, and in wealth, to be submissive any longer 
to the mere landlords' rule, which a pretence of repre- 
sentation for the "commons " of England served only to 
maintain. 

As we have seen (see section 65), the making up of 
the House of Commons was begun by the election of 
two or four knights from each county or shire. Then 
certain boroughs or towns were called upon to send 
representatives ; but such boroughs were never named 
in any law. Either the king or his sheriffs selected 
them as they saw fit. In many instances, moreover, 
towns of some importance were stricken from the 
sheriffs' lists on their own petition, because of the ex- 
pense involved. Thus the borough representation in 
Parliament was originally distributed in a very haphazard 
way ; and after a time, by mere custom, that chance 
arrangement became fixed. Certain boroughs were sup- 
posed to have acquired the right to seats in 
representa- Parliament, and the right belonged nowhere 
else. Many of them remained as they were in 
the fifteenth century, mere villages, while new towns 
grew up around them ; some disappeared, — Old Sarum, 
for example, from which the moving of Salisbury Cathe- 
dral to a new site carried all the population away, six 
centuries before. But the old boroughs, or, rather, the 
owners of the ground on which the old boroughs stood, 
were still sending members to the House of Commons, 
and the populous new cities and towns of England were 
allowed to send none. 

As a consequence, facts gathered in 1793 showed then 
that 307 members, being a clear majority of the House 
of Commons, were actually chosen by 154 persons, of 
whom 40 were peers. The state of facts in 1830 had 
been changed somewhat for the better, but not much. 



1831-1832] ENDING OF LANDLORD RULE. 593 

Even where towns of respectable population were repre- 
sented, the election of members had fallen into i ne q U aii- 
the hands of corporation councils (see page f e e p r °s enta 
230), which acted under influences opposed to tion - 
the interests of the people at large. In the counties, 
the suffrage was very limited, and landlord influence pre- 
vailed. 

Such, in brief, was the outrageous constitution of Par- 
liament, which England would endure no longer, and 
which the king had appointed ministers to reform. Their 
reform bill was brought into the House of Commons on 
the first clay of March, 1831, but the support it received 
did not promise success, and the king was persuaded to 
dissolve Parliament, giving the voters an opportunity in a 
new election to manifest their wish. The voters were 
very far from representing the nation, but its feeling 
acted on them so strongly that they sent up to the Com- 
mons an overwhelming majority for the bill. It was car- 
ried through the Commons in September, but rejected 
by the Tory House of Lords ; and alarming excitement 
and riot ensued in London and other towns. The Re- 
Parliament was prorogued until winter, when a formBilL 
new reform bill which passed the Commons was man- 
gled with destructive amendments by the Lords. The 
king was then asked to overcome the hostile majority 
in the upper House by a creation of new peers ; but he 
refused, and the ministers resigned. This raised public 
excitement to so dangerous a pitch that the king yielded, 
recalled Lord Grey, and promised the needed crea- 
tion of peers. His promise sufficed. Rather than be 
swamped in their House the Lords gave way and passed 
the bill (June 7, 1832). 

388. The Beginning of a Democratic Constitution. 
Fifty-six of what were known as the " rotten boroughs " 



594 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1832-1833 

of the past were swept away by the act, and many small 
boroughs which had been sending two members to Par- 
liament lost one. The seats thus emptied were given 
partly to the large counties, but mostly to the greater 
towns. The suffrage, or right of voting for members of 
Parliament, was largely extended ; but still the great 
mass of the poorer population, and the large class of 
young men who«were not householders, remained with- 
out votes. 

The widening of the franchise, however, was great 
enough to give a democratic character to the constitu- 
tion of England which it had never possessed before. 
Until this time the government had been that of an aris- 
tocratic class. The so-called commons represented in 
Parliament could be looked at as nothing else. They 
had been about half a million in number, hold- 

The demo- . ...... ... .... 

cratic ing political rights which twenty millions or 

more of their fellow-citizens did not share. It 
was a very broad-based aristocracy, but it was an aristo- 
cracy, nevertheless. Now the base was broadened enough 
to take in a real part of the English common people, and 
the making of a democratic constitution was begun. 

389. Work of the Reformed Parliament. The new 
electors were given an immediate opportunity to choose 
a new Parliament, and when it came together there 
seemed to be nothing in the way of wrongs that the 
Commons were not ready to reform. The same spirit 
prevailed in the ministry, and remarkable work was done 
during the following year. Slavery in the British colo- 
nies was abolished (August 30, 1833), ^20,000,000 being 
paid in compensation to the owners of the emancipated 
Abolition blacks. Some steps were taken to make the 
of slavery, established Protestant church in Ireland a little 
less oppressive to the Catholics, who were tithed and 



«833] 



ENDING OF LANDLORD RULE. 



595 



otherwise taxed for its support. The first of a series of 
humane laws, to limit and regulate the employment of 
children in factories, was passed. The first national 
appropriation of money in aid of common schools was 
made ; but it was only ,£20,000. The commercial mo- 
nopoly of the East India Company was taken away and 
the Indian trade thrown open to all. The poor law was 
amended ; the corrupting evil of sinecure offices was at- 
tacked, and the brutality of army floggings was checked. 
390. New Party Names. The reforming majority in 
Parliament included a number of democratic politicians, 
brought in by the new 
voters, who wanted 
radical changes that 
were alarming to the 
^lder school of Whigs. 
A.s it also included a 
number of Irish mem- 
bers, whose sole in- 
terest was in Irish 
questions, it was a 
party not very solidly 
made up. On the 
other side, among the 
Tories, a new split, 
like that in Canning's 
time, was beginning 
to appear, one divi- 
sion, under Peel, moving forward, to accept the altered 
state of things ; the other holding back. Party ties, in 
fact, were greatly loosened, and Tories who inclined to 
liberality were soon beginning to exchange places with 
Whigs of a conservative state of mind. Thus the two 
great parties of later English history, the Conservative 




SIR ROBERT PEEL. 



596 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1834-1827 

and the Liberal, were having their birth, and it was at 
this time, or soon after, that they took to themselves 
those better names. 

391. The Last Years of the Reign of William IV. 
Disagreements among his colleagues caused the resigna- 
tion of Earl Grey, in the summer of 1834, and the reform 
ministry was led for a time by Lord Melbourne ; but in 
November the king, who had no love for the reformers, 
found excuses for dismissing them, and for calling back 
Wellington and Peel. This was the last English ministry 
ever put out of office by royal command. From that day 
to this, no such change has been made without a vote in 
the House of Commons which signified its wish. And 
thus the ministerial government of England became fully 
a responsible government, — responsible to Parliament 
alone. 

The experience of the Wellington-Peel ministry soon 
established this fact. They could do nothing with the 
majority against them in the popular House, and they 
failed to change it in their favor by a new election. Peel 
Ministerial ma de a bold announcement of his readiness to 
bfnty^s 1 -' ta ^ e ll P '"^forming work, but the majority was 
tabiished. st i]i against him in the new House. In the 
spring of 1835 he gave way, and the Melbourne ministry 
was recalled. Lord Melbourne was an indolent man, and 
little of importance was done while he held the reins. 

In June, 1837, King William died, and was succeeded 

by Victoria, daughter of his younger brother, the Duke 

of Kent. The young queen was at that time eighteen 

years of age. This separated the English crown 

Accession 

of Queen from that of Hanover. The latter passed to 
the Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George 
III., as the nearest male heir. 

392. Early Years of the Victorian Reign. " The 



1837-1839] ENDING OF LANDLORD RULE. 597 

age of electricity," as we often call the present time, 
may be said to have had its beginning at the beginning 
of the reign of Queen Victoria, since experiments in 
electric telegraphy — the first practical use of electricity 
that was made — reached positive success in the year 
that she was crowned ; but the first working line of 
electric telegraph, between Washington and Baltimore, 
in the United States, was not constructed until 1844. 

At the outset of her reign, the government of the 
young queen had to deal with a rebellion in Canada, 
arising mainly from a demand by the colonial people for 
more control of their legislatures, but aggravated in the 
province of Lower Canada by bad feeling between the 
few English settlers and officials and the far Canadian 
greater numbers of the Canadian French. The rebelllon - 
rebellion (known in America as " the Patriot War ") was 
suppressed with needless severity ; but the chief causes 
of discontent were afterwards removed, by changes in 
the colonial government, under which the two provinces 
of Upper and Lower Canada were united in one. 

An appalling disaster to the British arms was brought 
about, in 1839, by the worse than folly of the governor- 
general of India, Lord Auckland, who had sent 

Disaster 111 

forces into Afghanistan to meddle in a dispute Afghanis- 
between two rivals for its throne. The incom- 
petent commander of the army allowed it to be surprised 
and helplessly besieged in Cabul.; then sought and ob- 
tained permission to retreat, but was treacherously at- 
tacked in the mountain passes, where little resistance 
could be made. One man alone, of more than 1 5,000, 
escaped by chance, to tell the awful tale. With prompt 
energy the Afghans were chastised, but the horrible dis- 
aster was beyond repair. 

Another dark event that occurred in these years — 



598 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1840-1841 

not disastrous to England, but more shameful than the 
The Opium tragedy in Afghanistan — was an attack upon 
War - China which is known as "the Opium War." 

For the good of its people, the Chinese government was 
endeavoring to stop the bringing of opium into the coun- 
try, and took rough measures against a systematic smug- 
gling of the drug from India which was carried on, by 
English traders, on an enormous scale. The Chinese 
officials were insulting in some things that they did ; but 
there was little excuse for the action of the British gov- 
ernment, in 1 840, when it took up the cause of the opium 
smugglers, and forced China to open her ports to their 
trade. The better feeling of the English people was 
sternly roused on the subject by Bright, Cobden, and 
others, who denounced the war. 

Government remained in the hands of the Melbourne 
ministry until 1841 ; but it gradually lost support in the 
House of Commons, and was harassed by opposition 
from the Lords. Its most vigorous but least scrupulous 
administration was in foreign affairs, conducted by Lord 
Penny Palmerston, who had been a disciple of Can- 
postage. n j n g an j na j p asS ed over to the Whigs. Its 
most notable achievement in domestic measures was the 
great postal reform, brought about by Rowland Hill 
(1840-41), which reduced letter postage in Great Britain 
and Ireland to a penny, and provided for its payment by 
stamps. 

In 1840 Queen Victoria's marriage to her cousin, 
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, occurred, and 
of a the age proved to be a singularly happy union, as for- 
tunate for England as for the queen. 

393. The Chartist Agitation. These early years of 
the reign were disturbed by an agitation that arose in 
that great hard-working body of the English people who 



1838-1841] ENDING OF LANDLORD RULE. 599 

were still excluded from political rights. In 1838 it took 
the form of a demand for what was called "The People's 
Charter," that being a document which embodied six 
democratic claims, namely : Universal suffrage for men ; 
apportionment of representation in Parliament by equal 
districts ; vote by ballot ; annual parliaments ; pay to 
members of Parliament, and no property qualification for 
such members. The reformed Parliament was not yet 
democratic enough to give even respectful treatment to a 
monster petition in behalf of the Charter, which came to 
it in 1839. This excited a righteous anger among the 
Chartists, as they called themselves ; their demonstra- 
tions became threatening and riotous, and were harshly 
suppressed. 

394. Peel and the Abolition of the Corn Laws. 
While the Liberals had been losing ground, Peel and 
his party had been gaining, and the government passed 
to them, in 1841, with a strong majority in a newly 
elected House. Then began a new period of reforming 
work, quite as remarkable as that of 1833-34, an d pos- 
sibly more important in effect. 'Peel had shed the old 
Toryism, far more than his party had done, and he soon 
left the bulk of the party behind him, as he went for- 
ward in measures which ■ needed help from the Liberals 
to carry them through. 

The oppression of the corn laws had been lessened 
by several amendments since 1815, but they still taxed 
the food of the people very grievously, for the benefit 
of the landlords, to whom they gave " protected " high 
rents. Since 1838, a powerful agitation for their total 
repeal had been carried on, by an Anti-Corn-Law League, 
the ablest and most energetic workers in which were 
Richard Cobden, Charles Villiers, and John Bright. Peel 
first attempted to meet the demands of the League by 



6oo 



THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. 



[1841-1S46 



another lowering of the duties on wheat and other corn, 
in a sliding scale ; but the nation, stirred to its depths 
by the League, was not content. The terrible famine 
Famine in °f l %45~47> m Ireland, produced by a disease 
Ireland. which destroyed the potato crop, on which half 
the people lived, brought an argument that nothing could 
refute, to enforce the demand for free food. Peel sur- 
rendered to it, parted with many of his colleagues and 
political friends, and carried a bill (July, 1846) for the 
abolition of the corn laws, by the help of the Liberal 
vote. 

395. Further Progress towards Free Trade. The 
whole theory of protective duties was falling with the fall 

of the protective corn 
duties, so far as English 
opinion was concerned. 
Already, in 1842, and 
again in 1845, Peel had 
carried forward Huskis- 
son's work of lowering 
or abolishing duties on 
many imports, especially 
on raw materials, and 
the same work went 
steadily on, under Peel's 
successors, until no ves- 
tige of protective duties 
remained to limit the freedom of British trade. The 
last of the restrictive navigation laws went with them in 
1849. 

396. Ireland. When Catholic emancipation had been 
attained, O'Connell became an agitator for the repeal of 
the union of Ireland with England, and for an independ- 
ent Parliament to be restored to the former kingdom. 




DANIEL O'CONNELL. 



1S41-1S46] ENDING OF LANDLORD RULE. 6oi 

The movement he stirred up became so threatening in 
1 84 1 that he was arrested and sentenced by a Dublin 
court to imprisonment for two years. On appeal, how- 
ever, to the House of Lords, the sentence was annulled 
and he was released; but age and its infirmities had prac- 
tically ended his career. He was succeeded by .. Yo ung 
a "Young Ireland" party, which aimed at ac- Ireland " 
tual rebellion, and which worked for some years to that 
end. 

Previously, church questions had been foremost in the 
grievances of Ireland ; but now the -"land question " — 
the question of wrongs suffered by a helpless 
peasant tenantry under landlords who rarely land 
lived on their estates — was coming to the ques 10n ' 
front. It was the most serious of Irish questions in the 
end. 

397. Boundary Treaties with the United States. In 
foreign affairs, the administration of Peel was most dis- 
tinguished by the successful closing of two threatening 
boundary disputes between Canada and the United 
States. By what is known as the Ashburton treaty, 
in 1842, the northeastern boundary of the latter was 
determined, and by another treaty concluded in 1846 
the more troublesome Oregon boundary was defined. 

398. The Close of Peel's Ministry. Peel's opponents 
in his own party, who accused him of betraying them, 
found an opportunity to defeat one of his bills, on the 
very day of the passage of his free-corn bill, and he re- 
signed. A Liberal ministry, under Lord John Russell, 
was then formed. 



602 ENDING OF LANDLORD RULE. 

TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

380. Division among the Tories. 
Topics. 

i. The Cato Street conspiracy. 

2. The new Tory influence and Canning's foreign policy. 

3. Work of Huskisson. 

Reference. — Bright, Hi. 1364-1370, 1376-1381. 

381. Canning's Ministry. 
Topic 

1. Change in the cabinet and Canning's death. 
Reference. — Gardiner, iii. 882-885. 

382. Wellington's Ministry. 
Topics. 

1. Circumstances bringing Wellington to power. 

2. Reform measures carried by Wellington and Peel. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1395-1402. 

383. Catholic Emancipation. 
Topics. 

1. Daniel O'Connell. 

2. The bill for Catholic emancipation. 

References. — Bright, iii. 1402-1409; Gardiner, iii. 895, 896; 
Montague, 195-198 ; Colby, 303-306; Thursfield, Peel, ch. iv. ; 
Taswell-Langmead, 753 ; May, ii. chs. xii. and xiii. 

384. Freedom of the Press. 
Topic. 

1. Persecution of newspapers and its results. 
Reference. — Taswell-Langmead, 756-766. 

385. The First Railways. 
Topics. 

1. The Stockton and Darlington line. 

2. The Liverpool and Manchester line. 

3. Steam power in boats. 
Reference. — Gardiner, iii. 906-909. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 603 

386. Death of George IV. — Accession of William IV. 

Topic. 

1. William's character and the new cabinet. 
Reference. — Gardiner, 898-902. 

387. The First Reform Bill. 

Topics. 

1. The demands from towns^ and cities for representation. 

2. Condition of borough and county representation. 

3. Opposition of the Lords to a reform bill. 

4. Overcoming of this opposition and passage of a bill. 
References. — Bright, iii. 1423-1434; Gardiner, iii. 902-905; 

Green, 839 ; Thursfield, Peel, ch. v. ; Colby, 306-308 ; Montague, 
206-208 ; Ransome, 247-249; Traill, vi. 9-1 1 ; H. Taylor, ii. 527- 
530; May, i-333-341- 
Research Questions. — (1.) What is a parliamentary bill? (2.) 
What is the process of getting it passed? (Gardiner, iii. 903, 
footnote.) (3.) What was the condition of the franchise up to 
this time? (Ransome, 239, 243, 244.) (4.) In what way did the 
American Revolution and the Wilkes struggle affect the ques- 
tion of reform ? (Ransome, 239.) (5.) What effect did the 
French • Revolution have? (Ransome, 241.) (6.) Describe the 
difficulties of passing the Reform Bill. (Ransome, 245-248.) 
(7.) Sum up the results of the bill. (Ransome, 248, 249.) 

388. The Beginning of a Democratic Constitution. 

Topics. 

.1. Revision of the boroughs and widening of the franchise. 

2. Change begun in the character of the constitution. 
Reference. — Bright, iii. 1434-1456. 

389. Work of the Reformed Parliament. 
Topics. 

1. Spirit of the new Parliament. 

2. Reforms that it accomplished. 

References. — Bright, iii. 1434-1456. Trades unions: Bright, 
iv. 38, 39,402-404, 502-506, 574; Gibbins, 190, 191, 207, 220- 
222; Cunningham and McArthur, 108, 109, 234; Howell's Con- 
flict of Capital and Labor; McCarthy, ii. 346, 347, 391-41 1; 
Cunningham, ii. 588, 589, 614-616, 644-650 ; Traill, v. 341-345, 
491-493, 616, 617, and vi. 92, 93, 221-224, 423-425, 610-614. 



604 ENDING OF LANDLORD RULE. 

Research Questions — (i.) Discuss the justice of public taxa- 
tion to support the church. (2.) In what countries are churches 
given such support to-day? (3.) What is our practice as to the 
relation of church and state ? (4.) What made parents send 
their children to work in factories? (Gibbins, 178.) (5.) Describe 
the condition of children in these factories. (Gibbins, 179, 180.) 
(6.) Were they any better off if employed at home ? (Cunning- 
ham and McArthur, 215.) (7.) In what other employments did 
they suffer? (Cunningham and McArthur, 215, 219.) (8.) What 
was the effect of this upon domestic life? (Gibbins, 178, 182.) 
(9.) What would be the effect of this treatment of children upon 
the next generation of laborers? (10.) What was the first mea- 
sure for the relief of children ? (Cunningham and McArthur, 
215, 216.) (11.) What other measures were enforced? (Cunning- 
ham and McArthur, 218.) (12.) What laws have we in this 
country with reference to employment of children? (13.) Con- 
trast the public school systems of England and the United 
States at the present time. 

390. New Party Names. 
Topics. 

1. Split among Whigs and Tories. 

2. Reorganization and change in names of political parties. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 909. Abolition of slavery : Gardi- 
ner, iii. 910 ; Bright iii. 1142, 1271, 1272, 1381-1383, I44 2 -I445- 
Poor laws: Gardiner, iii. 911; Bright, iii. 1228, 1333, 1361, 
1451-1453; Gibbins, 187; Cunningham and McArthur, 94, 103, 
249; Montague, 224; Taswell-Langmead, 477-480. 

391. The Last Years of the Reign of William IV. 
Topics. 

1. Last dismissal of a ministry by the king. 

2. Failure of its successor and Melbourne ministry recalled. 

3. King's death and succession of Victoria. 
Reference. — Bright, iv. 1-4. 

392. Early Years of the Victorian Reign. 
Topics. 

1. Beginning of the age of electricity. 

2. Canadian rebellion and disaster in Afghanistan. 

3. The Opium War and postal reform. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 605 

4. The queen's marriage. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 914-922; Bright, iv. 5-71. Opium 
War: Bright, iv. 71-76; Guest, 559 ; McCarthy, History of Our 
Own Times, i. ch. viii. 

393. The Chartist Agitation. 
Topics. 

1. The six claims of the People's Charter. 

2. Chartist demonstration and suppression. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 922-924. The factory system and 
Factory Acts: Gardiner, iii. 876, 911, 927; Bright, iv. 39, 40, 
97, 98, 170, 171 ; Gibbins, 160, 175-186; Traill, v. 591-604, vi. 
217-219,368-372, 423,615; Cunningham and McArthur, 215- 
235; McCarthy, i. 203-207 : Cunningham, ii. 590, 61 1-643. 

Research Question. — (1.) The chartist agitation arose from 
what condition of the poor? (Gardiner, iii. 922, 923.) 

394. Peel and the Abolition of the Corn Laws. 
Topics. 

1. The new ministry and the agitation against the corn laws. 

2. Famine in Ireland and repeal of corn laws. 
References. — Thursfield, Peel, ch. x. ; Gardiner, iii. 931-933; 

Bright, iv. 128-133, 135-138, 1 56-161 ; McCarthy, i. ch. xvii. ; 
Cunningham and McArthur, 84-89, 164; Gibbins, 199, 202; 
Cunningham, ii. 679-682. 
Research Questions. — (1.) Were other food products scarce in 
Ireland at the time of the famine? (Traill, vi. 247.) (2.) Who 
introduced the potato into Ireland ? (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
" Ireland.") (3.) What connection is there between the political 
conditions of Ireland and the cultivation of the potato ? (Same 
reference.) 

395. Further Progress toward Free Trade. 
Topic. 

1. Gradual repeal of all protective duties and taxes. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 924,926,929-931, 938; Bright, iv. 

50-52, 79-87, 116, 123, 124, 130-138, 219, 222, 226-228; Guest, 

560 ; McCarthy, i. chs. xiv. and xv. 

396. Ireland. 

Topics. 

1. O'Connell's renewed efforts for Irish independence. 



606 ENDING OF LANDLORD RULE. 

2. Young Ireland party and the land question. 
Reference. — Bright, iv. 128-130. 

397. Boundary Treaties with the United States. 
Topic. 

1. The Ashburton treaty. 
Reference. — Bright, iv. 144-146. 
Research Question. — (1.) What were the respective claims of 

England and the United States which this treaty settled. 

398. The Close of Peel's Ministry. 
Topic. 

1. Cause of his resignation. 
Reference. — Bright, iv. 139, 140. 



LINEAGE OF THE HANOVERIAN SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND, 

FROM JAMES I., OF ENGLAND. 

1st Generation. 2d. 3d. 4th. 5th. 

f Elizabeth, [ Sophia, 
James I. , married J ™ r " ea ( George I., | George II., 

0/ England. \ Frederick V., ] E i ector ' f\ '714-1727- ) 1727-176°- 
{ Elector Palatine. [ Hanov / r 

5th. * 6th. 7th. 8th. 9th. 

George IV., 
1 820-1 830. 

George II., ( Frederick, | George III., 1830-1837. ' 

1727-1760. 1 died 1751. I 1760-1820. 

n F w /£' , (Victoria, 
Duke of Kent, \ ~_ ' 

diecfiSao. ' l837_ - 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

growth of democracy. 

Queen Victoria. 1846- 1899. 

399. The Russell Ministry. Peel, and a number of 
followers, called Peelites, now held an independent place 
in Parliament, between the Conservatives and the Lib- 
erals, but acted generally with the latter. Next to their 
chief, the ablest of the Peelites was William E. Gladstone, 
fast rising to fame. The Conservatives had found their 
leader in Benjamin Disraeli, a man of showy talents and 
shallow convictions, who entered Parliament as a Radical 
at the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign. 

The Russell ministry held a difficult position and dealt 
with many troubles for six years. It had to give relief 
to starving Ireland, and it made a beginning in attempts 
to give the Irish peasants some rights which their land- 
lords would have to respect. It had to over- Yo ung 
come disorders in both England and Ireland, anduie 
excited by revolutionary movements on the con- chartists, 
tinent, in 1848 (see page 565). In England, the Char- 
tists revived their agitation, and threatened to go in a 
body, 200,000 strong, with their petition, to Westminster 
Hall. In Ireland, the Young Ireland party made a weak 
attempt at rebellion, and its leaders, Mitchell, Meagher, 
O'Brien, and others, were transported for long terms or 
for life. 

By founding a few schools for the training of ele- 
mentary teachers, this ministry did a little to cultivate 



608 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1850-1854 

the idea, which grew very slowly in England, that gov- 
ernment had some duty to perform in the mat- 
ter of the education of the common people. 
The glory of the most notable event in this period 
belongs to Prince Albert, the uncrowned hus- 

The first 

world's band of the queen, who conceived and planned 
an International Exhibition of Industries, at 
London, in 185 1, — the first of the great World's Fairs. 

When Louis Napoleon, in that peaceful year, overthrew 
the French republic by a murderous surprise and made 
Palmer- himself emperor, Lord Palmerston, the English 
stonand foreign secretary, approved the foul deed in a 
Napoleon, dispatch which caused him to be dismissed ; 
but next year he revenged himself on his late associates 
by carrying a vote against them, and they resigned. 

The Conservatives then undertook the government, 
with Lord Derby at its head and Disraeli for leader in 
the House. They dissolved Parliament, declared their 
intention to revive the protective policy, and were beaten 
on that issue so decisively that it has never since ap- 
peared in English politics. The short-lived 
Disraeli Derby-Disraeli ministry was followed by a coa- 
mims ry. j^ on f Lhb er al s and Peelites, under the Earl of 
Aberdeen. Peel had died in 1850, killed by a fall from 
his horse, and Mr. Gladstone may be said to have taken 
his place. As chancellor of the exchequer, the latter 
entered now on a brilliant career. 

400. The Crimean War. More by the arts of Louis 
Napoleon than by any wish of its own, the Aberdeen 
government was drawn into an alliance with that poor 
imitator of his uncle, against Russia, in defence of the 
Turks. The Crimean War which followed (1854-56) 
had no reasonable cause, and nothing came, in the con- 
duct of it or out of the results, which Englishmen can 



1854-1857] 



GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 



609 



look back upon without regret. In battles on the Alma, 
at Balaclava, at Inkerman, and in a long siege 
of Sebastopol, the British soldiers did splendid Sebas- 
fighting, as they always do ; but they were ° P ° 
wretchedly commanded, and so incapably cared for that 
thousands perished needlessly from hardships and dis- 
ease. 

Public anger over the mismanagement of the war swept 
the Aberdeen ministry from office, early in 1855, an d gave 
the lead in government to Lord Palmerston, Palmer . 
who had the bold, self-confident energy needed ston - 
for such affairs. Things were bettered in the Crimea 
by the new administration, but no 
glory was won. An end to the war 
came in the winter of 1856, and 
terms of peace were settled by a 
congress at Paris, in March of that 
year. 

401. Civil Service Reform. In 
the midst of the Crimean War, a 
memorable and most important re- 
form was introduced. By a simple 
order of the queen in council (May, 
1855), a system of competitive ex- 
aminations was put in force, for the 
selection of persons to be employed 
in the public service, and the filling 
of such employments from one class, through social and 
political influence, was brought to an end. 

402. Palmerston and the British War Spirit. 
Quickly following the close of the Crimean War came 
another inexcusable war with China, concerning which 
the action of government was condemned by a vote of 
the Commons (March, 1857) ; whereupon the pugna- 




THE VICTORIA CROSS. 

Instituted in 1856, as a deco> 
ration awarded for notable 
deeds of valor. 



6lO THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1857 

cious prime minister, instead of resigning, dissolved Par- 
liament and appealed in a general election to the peo- 
ple. A majority took the fighting side of the question, 
regardless of right or wrong ; Bright, Cobden, and most 
of the scrupulous members who had called Palmerston 
to account, were defeated, and he was given a stronger 
majority in Parliament than he had before. 

403. The Sepoy Mutiny in India. -The new Parlia- 
ment had just assembled, when news came from India 
which drove all thought of other things from every Eng- 
lish mind. The Sepoys, the native troops employed by 
the East Indian government, were rising in a wild revolt, 
which threatened ruin to British rule in the east, and 
horrors unspeakable, of outrage and death, to the thou- 
sands of English men, women, and children in that dis- 
tant land. The Sepoys were 300,000 in number ; the 
native population behind them more than two hundred 
millions ; the British soldiers a mere handful of men. 

Since the days of Clive and Hastings, the East India 
Company, partly directed and supported by the British 
government, had gone steadily forward in the subjugation 
of the numerous Indian states, sometimes by complete 
The rule of conquest and annexation, sometimes by mere 
the.East reduction of native princes to obedience, until 

India Com- L 

pany. nearly the whole of the great peninsula of Hin- 

dustan was under its rule, and held so, in the main, by 
an army drawn from the subject races, with British offi- 
cers in command. A passionate mutiny in that army 
was an awful event for England to face. 

For a generation past, there had been few political 
grievances in India that were deeply felt. The people 
had been used to subjugation, knowing no other condi- 
tion, and they had had more peace and comfort under 
the rule of the English during late years than they ever 



i8 5 7] GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 6l I 

knew before. But the religious jealousy of both Hindus 
and Mohammedans was constantly awake, and 
it was that which set the mutiny on foot. The of the 
Sepoys were led to believe that their cartridges mu my ' 
had been greased with the fat of pigs, which both reli- 
gions abhor as unclean, and this seemed to them a wan- 
ton defilement that called for revenge. Once started, 
the revolt was helped on by many feelings ; but it failed 
entirely to become a rebellion of the people at large. 
The apathetic masses looked on with almost indifferent 
eyes. 

Some of the officers first surprised by the outbreak 
dealt weakly with it, and the mutineers were allowed to 
take Delhi and Cawnpore, with horrible massacres there 
and elsewhere ; but instantly, almost, there sprang to the 
front of the English such a body of heroic men as have 
rarely been found ready to meet that desperate kind of 
need. John Lawrence, Henry Lawrence, John The British 
Nicholson, Henry Havelock, Colin Campbell, leaders - 
Lord Canning (the governor-general), are names that 
shine lustrously among the hundreds of those who 
showed then the stuff of character in the Anglo-Saxon 
race which gives it rule. Within little more than four 
months from the outbreak of the mutiny (May, 1857), its 
spirit was broken, by the storming of Delhi and the 
relief of Lucknow, the two centres of its strength, and 
early summer in the following year found India restored 
to order and peace. Its government was then taken 
entirely from the East India Company and vested in the 
English crown. 

404. Changes of Ministry. Lord Palmerston was out 
of office before the ending of the Sepoy revolt. There 
had been an attempt to assassinate the French emperor, 
followed by angry complaints that England was a breed- 



6l2 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1858-1861 

ing-place for such plots. Palmerston thought the com- 
plaints were justified, and proposed an amendment of the 
conspiracy laws ; but Parliament voted him down, and he 
resigned (February, 1858). Another brief term 
Disraeli of Derby-Disraeli government then followed, in 
which Disraeli made a bid for popular support 
by proposing a new scheme of parliamentary reform ; 
but his bill was pronounced fanciful by the friends of 
Palmer- reform, and met with defeat. Palmerston be- 
ston again. came premier again, with Russell for foreign 
secretary, and Mr. Gladstone, now fully united with the 
Liberal party, for minister of finance. 

The early work of this ministry was most notable in 
the department of Mr. Gladstone, who handled the 
Gladstone's sources of public revenue with remarkably fine 
"budget.- j-esuits His "budget" (as the financial esti- 
mates of the government are called in England) of i860 
swept from the British tariff the last protective duties 

on manufactured goods. Measures of reform 
Post-office . , . , . .. . 

savings or social experiment had little encouragement 

bunks 

from Palmerston ; but one, which created post- 
office savings banks, for small deposits, was adopted in 
1 86 1, with great success. The death of Prince 

Death of . , , m . . 

Prince Albert, in that year, was a cruel affliction to 

Albert 

the queen, and took .from England an influence 
that had always been wisely and quietly used for its 
good, in many refining ways. 

405. The Civil War in America. The outbreak, in 
1 86 1, of civil war in America, caused by the attempted 
secession of slaveholding States, brought to light a very 
sharp opposition of feeling in different classes of the 
English people towards the republic of the United 
States. The mass of the common people showed warm 
friendliness to the cause of the Union, but the wealthier 



1861-1865] GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 



613 




HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, OPENED IN iSj: 



classes were hostile to it, with few exceptions and little 
disguise. The disposition of the latter was represented 
in the government, and would probably have carried 
England into some course openly helpful to the seceding 
States, if it had not been held in check by that powerful 
under-force in public opinion which English statesmen 
had learned not to defy. 

Confederate privateers (notably the Alabama), built, 
equipped, and manned in British ports, escaped deten- 
tion, by what seemed to the American government and 
its friends to be wilful neglect or connivance on the part 
of English officials, and almost swept American com- 
merce from the sea. But, on the other hand, The cotton 
to half appease the bitter feeling which this famine - 
caused in America, was the pathetic fact that thousands 
of British workingmen, whose spindles and looms were 
idle for the want of American cotton, and who suffered 
years of hardship not easily described, would join in no 



614 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1861-1866 

cry against the struggle for the life of the great republic, 
which had brought that calamity to their doors. Nor 
was friendship to the American Union confined to the 
working class. It enlisted some of the best and highest 
in English society, and it spoke in Parliament with the 
most eloquent of all English tongues — the tongue of 
John Bright. 

The responsibility of the British government for the 
destructive work of the Alabama and other 
Alabama Confederate privateers became a serious ques- 
ques ion. ^^ between England and the United States, 
remaining in dispute for several years after the close of 
the civil war. 

406. Russell's Second Ministry. Lord Palmerston 
died in the autumn of 1865, and Lord John Russell took 
his place. A trifling insurrection among the blacks in 
Jamaica, suppressed with brutality by the governor of 
the island, named Eyre, and the outbreak of Fenianism 
in Ireland and America, were the exciting events of 
that year and the next. Russell wished to take some 
step further in popularizing the representation in Parlia- 
ment, by a new reform bill, but met opposition in his 
own party, and resigned (June, 1866). 

407. The Fenian Movement. The leaders of disaffec- 
tion in Ireland had now organized a secret society, called 
the Fenian Brotherhood, which plotted armed rebellion, 
and which embraced a multitude of the Irish in the 
United States. A prodigious movement of emigration 
since the famine had carried a vast number from Ireland 
to America. The emigrants had fairly prospered ; many 
had served in the American civil war ; they were eager 
to furnish money, men, and captains to the undertaking 
which the Fenian Brotherhood proposed. But weak or 
dishonest leadership made the whole movement futile in 



i866-iS68] GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 615 

the last degree. Some reckless raids into Canada from 
the American border were made without any rational 
object or plan, and a rising attempted in Ireland, in 1867, 
was easily put down. 

408. The Second Reform of Parliament. Disraeli 
and Derby, who took the government in hand when Rus- 
sell resigned, brought forward proposals for an increase 
of the voters in parliamentary elections which, after much 
amendment, were embodied in a reform bill and passed 
(August, 1867). This second reform went farther to- 
wards a democratic constitution of Parliament than even 
the broader Liberals had dared to suggest. In the 
boroughs, it made voters of all male householders who 
paid rates for the relief of the poor, and of all lodgers 
who paid rent to the amount of ten pounds ($50) a year. 
In county elections, every tenant who paid twelve pounds 
in annual rent, and every owner of property valued at 
five pounds per year, was given a vote. 

409. The Dominion of Canada. It was the good 
fortune of the Derby-Disraeli government to bring a 
long-considered project of great importance to comple- 
tion, by the passing of an act (March, 1867) which con- 
federated the British provinces of North America (with 
the exception of Newfoundland) in the union that bears 
the name of the Dominion of Canada, with the constitu- 
tion of a substantially independent state. 

410. A New Period of Reforms. The Liberals in 
general had been brought by this time to see that radical 
measures must be taken to remove the grievances of the 
Catholic Irish people, beginning with an act to release 
them from the support of that established Protestant 
church which had tithed and taxed them for three hun- 
dred years. Resolutions to this effect were carried by 
Mr. Gladstone (April, 1868), in opposition to the minis- 



616 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1S6S-1S74 

ters, who then dissolved Parliament and were overwhelm- 
ingly beaten at the polls. This made Mr. Glad- 

Gladstone's . . . 

first minis- stone prime minister, and, during the next five 
years, an extraordinary number of important 
measures was carried into effect. The Irish church was 
disestablished, and an attempt was made so to amend 
the Irish land laws that tenants might no longer be 
"evicted " (expelled) from their little holdings at the will 
of the landlord, and robbed of all the improvements they 
had made. A national system of common schools 
(partly " church schools," however, controlled by the 
established church) was founded ; dissenters, for the 
first time, were admitted to the great universities, by 
abolition of the test oath ; the sale of commissions in 
the army was abolished ; use of the ballot in voting was 
introduced. Finally, questions in dispute with the 
United States were arranged by the treaty of Washing- 
ton (May, 1 871), and the so-called "Alabama Claims" 
were settled in the following year by a tribunal of arbi- 
tration at Geneva, which awarded $15,000,000 in dam- 
ages to the United States. 

Every one of these measures made enemies, and the 
government was gradually weakened, until Mr. Glad- 
Return of stone, in 1874, thought it best to dissolve Par- 
Disraeu. Hament and have the national will expressed. 
The election went against him, and Mr. Disraeli was 
again called to the head of affairs. 

411. The "Imperial Policy" of Disraeli. Not long 
after becoming prime minister Mr. Disraeli was raised to 
the peerage, as Earl of Beaconsfield, and it is by that 
title that he is now better known. The six years of his 
ministry were a period of drum-and-trumpet displays, in 
what was called by his admirers an "imperial policy," 
but which got the now familiar name of "jingoism," 



I874-IS80] 



GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 



617 



from the refrain of a song that seemed to exactly ex- 
press the spirit in which the government was being car- 
ried on: "We don't want to fight," said the «ji ng0 . 
popular ditty, " but, by Jingo, if we do, We 've lsm- " 
got the ships, we 've got the men, and we 've got the 
money, too." As the result of Lord Beaconsfield's "im- 
perial policy," England was very nearly carried into 
another war with Russia, 
to defend the abominable 
government of the Turks ; 
a second meddlesome and 
disastrous invasion of Af- 
ghanistan was undertaken ; 
a bloody and inglorious 
war with the Dutch or Boer 
republic of the Transvaal, 
in South Africa, and a 
worse war with the neigh- 
boring Zulus, were pro- 
voked ; and England was 
involved in undertakings 
in Egypt that led on to a 
succession of costly wars. 
The "imperial policy " was crowned, so to speak, in 1877, 
when the queen, by formal proclamation, assumed the 
title of Empress of India. When the time came, Gladstone 
in 1880, for the election of a new Parliament, a ^ ain - 
the country was found to have tired of "jingoism," and 
a great Liberal majority threw Beaconsfield out, to bring 
Gladstone in. 

412. The Land League and the Home Rule Party in 
Ireland. Since the Liberals went out of office, in 1874, 
the state of Ireland had grown worse. Mr. Gladstone's 
land bill had not worked with success. Means of evasion 




BENJAMIN DISRAELI, EARL OF BEA- 
CONSFIELD. 



6i8 



THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. 



[1SS0-1SS4 



had been found, and evictions had increased. Hatred of 
landlords had risen to a passionate heat. A widespread 
"Land League" had been organized throughout the 
country, for warfare against the whole system under 
which most of the soil of Ireland is held ; while a com- 
pact party, demanding " Home Rule " for Ireland, by a 
separate legislature, had risen among the Irish 
and the members of Parliament, under a resolute leader, 
govern- Mr. Charles Stuart Parnell. Mr. Gladstone 
formed a ministry that agreed in wishing to 
deal rightly with Ireland, but its failure to satisfy the 
Irish Home Rule Party was complete. By causes not 
readily explained, a state of fierce hostility between the 
government and the party of Mr. Parnell was brought 
about, which stopped all good work in Parliament, pro- 
voked violent acts of au 
thority, and excited mur 
derous crimes. 

413. The Third Re- 
form of Parliament. 
After two years of this 
lamentable conflict of the 
government with the 
Irish Home Rulers, a 
truce was arranged which 
allowed some measures 
of importance to be taken 
up. Foremost among 
them was a bill to enlarge 
and improve still further, 
and very greatly, the representation of the people in Par- 
liament. This passed the Commons in July, 1884. It 
was rejected by the Lords ; but their action stirred the 
country to a wrath which had, once more, its warning 




WILLIAM EWART GLAUS TONE. 



1884-1886] GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 619 

effect. Their prudent lordships passed the bill when it 
came to them, in November, a second time. By this 
third of the great parliamentary reforms, about two mil- 
lions of voters were added to the electors of Parliament, 
making the suffrage very nearly universal, and the Eng- 
lish constitution scarcely less democratic than that of the 
United States. Another act, which followed immedi- 
ately, made a new distribution of parliamentary seats, by 
districts nearly equal in population and fairly apportioned 
to country and town. 

414. Mr. Gladstone's First Irish Home Rule Bill. 
Mr. Gladstone had inherited troubles from his predeces- 
sor which drove him from office for a few months in 1885. 
The failure of his government to rescue General General 
Gordon from the Mahdi, at Khartoum, led to a 6ordon 
vote against it and to its resignation, in June. The Con- 
servatives formed a ministry then, under the Marquis of 
Salisbury 1 (Lord Beaconsfield had died in 1 881), 

but failed to win the majority of votes at a new Salisbury 
election of Parliament, and retired early in the 
next year. Mr. Gladstone returned to office with a de- 
termination to yield to the Irish demand for home rule ; 
but one large section of the Liberal party re- 

. b ^ / Third 

fused in this matter to follow his lead. A bill Gladstone 
which he introduced (April, 1886), giving Ire- 
land a separate legislature, was defeated in the House of 
Commons, and, when he dissolved Parliament for a new 
election, the verdict of the House was sustained by the 
popular vote. 

415. Conservatives and Liberal Unionists in Power. 
Mr. Gladstone's place was again taken by Lord Salis- 

1 Lord Robert Cecil, third Marquis of Salisbury, is directly 
descended from the famous minister of Queen Elizabeth, William 
Cecil, Lord Burleigh, whose son, Robert Cecil, was created Earl of 
Salisbury by James I. 



620 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1886-1893 

bury, who headed a coalition ministry, in which the Con- 
servatives were joined by seceding Liberals, or 

Second . J J ° ' 

Salisbury Liberal Unionists, as they now chose to be 
called. This ministry conducted the govern- 
ment during six years, in which Ireland continued to 
be disturbed, but the empire was generally at peace. 
Some difficult disputes with the United States arose, 
over fishery and seal-killing rights, which were settled 
in the latter case by arbitration ; but a treaty for the 
settlement of the former was rejected by the American 
Partition Senate. During this period, vast regions of 
of Africa. Central Africa were partitioned, by occupation 
and agreement, between Great Britain, Germany, France, 
Portugal, and the Congo Free State (founded by the 
King of Belgium), Great Britain securing the larger 
share. In affairs at home, the most important measure 
county was one creating county councils, which simpli- 
and n free ne d anc l consolidated local government in Eng- 
schoois. j anc j an( j mac j e jt democratic in a marked de- 
gree. By another notable act, an increased public grant 
to the elementary schools abolished fees from pupils in 
most of them, and made them entirely free. 

416. Mr. Gladstone's Last Effort for Ireland. The 

term of Parliament expired in 1892, and Mr. Gladstone 

was then recalled to power by a majority elected 

Gladstone to the new House of Commons, distinctly in 

ministry. J 

favor of the concession to Ireland of home rule. 
It was a majority obtained in Ireland and Scotland, how- 
ever, whereby an opposing majority in England was over- 
a come. With this support, Mr. Gladstone, in 

The second rir 

Home Rule February, 1893, brought forward a second Home 
Rule bill, much altered from the first, and car- 
ried it through the House, after months of debate ; but 
when it was overwhelmingly defeated by the Lords he 



1S94-1S9S] GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 62 1 

put it aside, and turned for a few months to other work, 
which finished his political career. In April, 1894, he 
resigned, having passed the age of eighty-four. 

On the retirement of Mr. Gladstone, the Earl of Rose- 
bery was advanced to his place, at the head of the Lib- 
eral cabinet, which retained office until the following 
year. It carried through an important bill, making a 
further improvement in local government, by p arish 
creating parish councils, elected by universal councils - 
suffrage, women voting, as well as men. The Rosebery 
ministry lost the support of the Irish party and resigned 
in June, 1895. 

417. The Third Salisbury Ministry. Again in coali- 
tion with Liberal Unionists, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain at 
their head, Lord Salisbury became prime minister, with 
an immense majority given to him, on the election of a 
new House. At the time when this narrative closes 
(June, 1900), his ministry is still in power. The first 
four years of his government were mostly years of rest 
for England in political affairs, both at home Q Uie tin 
and abroad. So quiet a state in Ireland was Ireland - 
never before known. A new land bill, passed in 1896, 
and a "local self-government bill," passed in 1898, which 
creates county and district councils in Ireland, like those 
given to England in 1888, appear to have greatly les- 
sened the discontent. 

In 1895, the friendly relations between England and 
the United States were gravely disturbed by a question 
relating to Venezuela boundaries, but it was 

The 

happily smoothed away, by an acceptance of Venezuela 
arbitration on the part of the British govern- 
ment. Three years later, on the occasion of war between 
the United States and Spain, there were demonstrations 
of good feeling on the part of Great Britain toward the 



622 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1834-1900 

former, which powerfully strengthened the sense of kin- 
ship that ought to bind the two nations together. 

418. The " Diamond Jubilee " of Queen Victoria. 
In 1897, the sixtieth anniversary, called the " Diamond 
Jubilee," of Queen Victoria, was celebrated with great 
pomp, and with feelings deeply moved, by her subjects 
in every part of the great empire, far and near. No 
other reign in English history has been so long; no 
other has covered changes so great — an advance so 
wonderful in the conditions of human life, material and 
moral, political and social, for England and for the 
world. 

419. The British-Boer War. The most serious of 
recent British wars has been in progress since October, 
1899, but seems, at this writing, to be near its end. The 
origin of the war may be traced as far back as to the con- 
quest of Cape Colony, in South Africa, from the Dutch 
(see section 369). The Dutch colonists were never re- 
conciled to English rule. In 1834, being especially dis- 
satisfied with the terms on which slavery in British 
colonies was abolished, a large body of them migrated, 
The great or "trekked," as their own language expressed 
trek - it, to a region in the South African wilderness, 
outside, as they supposed, of the jurisdiction of the British 
Parliament and Crown. There, in Natal, — so named by 
Vasco da Gama, — they undertook to set up a republican 
government of their own. But England claimed sover- 
eignty over them and their land, and, in 1843, a large 
part of the colony " trekked " again, to the district since 
known as the Orange Free State. There, too, British 
sovereignty was asserted, and, once more, in 1848, the 
more obstinate of these Dutch farmers (called " boers " 
in their own language) moved farther into the wilderness, 
across the Vaal river, and took possession of the territory 



624 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [iS 5 4-, 9 oo 

on which the Transvaal or South African republic has 
grown up. The British government not only did not 
pursue the seceding Boers to this last retreat, but, in 
1854, it conceded independence to those who had re- 
mained in the Orange Free State. 

From that time until 1877 there was peace, if not 
friendliness, in South Africa, between English and Dutch. 
But the Transvaal Boers were fighting fierce wars with 
the natives, and some of them, who seemed to have 
grown fearful of the result, looked towards England at 
last for help. Their talk encouraged the Disraeli govern- 
ment of those days (the "Jingo " days described in sec- 
tion 411) to plant the British flag in the Transvaal and 
declare that country to be part of the dominions of the 
queen. After remonstrating for three years, the Boers 
Majuba took arms (1880), and showed great fighting 
qualities in several battles, especially at Majuba 
Hill (February 27, 188 1), where the British experienced 
a terrible defeat. Mr. Gladstone, who had then come 
into power, believed the Boers to have been wronged, 
and he made peace with them on terms which reestab- 
lished their republic, with independence except in foreign 
affairs. 

This settlement was disappointing to many on the Eng- 
lish side, who were hoping for a strong confederation 
of South African colonies, to consolidate the British 
empire in that part of the world. On the other hand, 
the Dutch of South Africa, who outnumbered the Eng- 
lish colonists, were aspiring to become the dominant 
race ; and thus there were seeds of strife in the situation 
which could not easily be kept from some kind of growth. 
Their growth was hastened by discoveries of a rich gold 
field in the Transvaal, and by a general excitement of 
desire in Europe for colonial possessions in the wild 






i. SS i -1900] 



GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 



625 



African domain. Foreign miners and traders (called 
" Uitlanders " or " Outlanders " by the Dutch), swarming 
into the gold field of Witwatersrand, or " the Rand," as 
the district was commonly known, soon outnumbered 
the Boer population of the Transvaal, and built up, at 
Johannesburg, the largest of South African cities. The 
Boers regarded the new-comers with jealous distrust, 




BRITISH-BOER WAR, SOUTH AFRICA, 1899-1900. 

taxed them heavily, and refused to give them political 
rights. As the Outlanders increased in number, their 
complaint of oppressive government and their demands 
for citizenship and equal rights in the republic became 
loud. 

At the same time, there was rising, by the side of the 
Boer republic, a new power in South Africa, which seems 
to have encouraged the Outlander demands. This was 



626 



THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. 



[1899-1900 




CHARLES DICKENS. 



the British South Africa 
Company, organized by 
a man of bold ambi- 
tions, Mr. Cecil Rhodes. 
Under a royal charter 
granted in 1889, the 
company had acquired 
control of a vast region, 
now called Rhodesia, 
which stretches north- 
ward from the Trans- 
vaal. Either some of 
the chiefs or some of 
the servants of this im- 
perial corporation (the 
real facts have not yet been ascertained) conspired, in 
1895, with certain of the Outlanders at Johannesburg, to 
assist the latter in a rising against the Boer TheJame . 
government. In December of that year the at- son raid - 
tempt was made and ignominiously failed. Five hundred 
armed men from Rhodesia, 
commanded by the com- 
pany's administrator, Dr. 
Jameson, invaded the 
Transvaal, but were speed- 
ily surrounded, captured, 
and disarmed. The British 
government claimed them, 
and punished them for the 
lawless deed ; but naturally 
a new bitterness entered 
the feeling of the Boers. 

They hastened prepara- 
tions for war which they 




LORD TENNY! 



IS99-I9 00 ] 



GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 



627 



had begun long before. The large revenue they were 
deriving from the taxation of the mines and miners was 
mostly expended 'upon arms, equipments, and military 
works. They made no concession to the Outlanders, 
while the latter were rousing England to indignation by 
their complaints. The British government at length, in 
October, 1899, attempted pressure upon that of the 
Transvaal, which the latter met by a sudden declaration 
of war. It was joined in the declaration by the Orange 
Free State. 

At the beginning of hostilities, the Boers, being fully 
prepared, as the British 
were not, had remarkable 
success ; but their num- 
bers were small, while the 
power arrayed against 
them was overwhelmingly 
great. Assisted from 
Canada, Australia, and 
New Zealand (her colo- 
nies volunteering to take 
part in the defence of the 
empire), England has sent 
to South Africa a larger 
army than she ever put 

into the field in any former war. The Boers, a mere 
handful against it, have given way, until their capital is 
in the hands of their enemies ; but they have made a 
fight which all the world must admire, and none perhaps 
more than the English themselves. 

420. Literature and Science in the Victorian Age. 
It is a fact that seems strange, but which probably has 
no especial meaning, that the three important reigns 
of English queens — those of Elizabeth, Anne, and 




LORD MACAULAY. 



628 THE DEMOCRATIC ERA. [1837-1900 

Victoria — have been periods of remarkable brilliancy in 
literature. Shakespeare gives a glory beyond compare 
to the Elizabethan Age, but otherwise the Victorian is 
hardly outshone by it, even in the domain of the poets, 
where Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Swinburne, Morris 
illustrate the genius of their generation ; while nothing 
nearly equal to the varied richness of the Victorian prose 
is found in any former time. The English novel, as per- 
fected by Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, Charlotte 
Bronte, Mrs. Gaskell, Reade, Kingsley, and their succes- 
sors, is a work of imaginative literary art that can claim 
equality at least with the Elizabethan drama, when Shake- 
speare's great plays are taken out. In discursive and 
descriptive English prose, new powers of expression have 
been found by Ruskin and Carlyle, new beauties by 
Stevenson, new effects by Macaulay, and a newly lighted 
clearness in it for deep matters of thought and know- 
ledge by Huxley and his fellow teachers in the scientific 
realm. 

In that wonderful realm comparison is stopped. The 
age of Darwin, and of the new turn and impulse that 
Darwin gave to all thought ; the age of the discovery of 
the germ-origin of most diseases ; the age of electricity, 
superseding steam ; of steel, superseding iron ; of the 
railway, the telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph ; 
of photography, and of a thousand chemical arts ; the 
age of marvels unnumbered in discovery, and of greater 
marvels in the spreading of the knowledge they bring 
through all ranks of the people, — this Victorian age of 
Science and of democracy in knowledge has a grandeur 
that surpasses all. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 629 
TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS. 

399. The Russell Ministry. 
Topics. 

1. Peel, Gladstone, and Disraeli. 

2. Reforms in Ireland and Chartist agitation. 

3. Assistance to education and work of Prince Albert. 

4. France and Lord Palmerston. 

5. Changes in the ministry. 
Reference. — Gardiner, iii. 932-938. 

400. The Crimean War. 
Topics. 

1. Reason for war. 

2. Balaclava, Inkerman, and the siege of Sevastopol. 

3. Fall of ministry and end of the war. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 943-948 ; Bright, iv. 229-285 ; Guest, 
563; Traill, vi. 125, 254-256, 262-269; McCarthy, i. chs. xxv- 
xxviii. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What were the underlying reasons 
for the Crimean War? (Guest, 562, 563.) (2.) What famous 
poem did Tennyson write on one of its incidents? (3.) This war 
shows the beginning of what service for the army? (4.) Of 
what modern method of obtaining the news? (5.) What portion 
of the Turkish province is it Russia's ambition to seize? (6.) 
Does England wish to prevent the breaking up of the Turkish 
empire? (Bright, iii. 1465.) 

401. Civil Service Reform. 
Topic. 

1. Competitive examinations. 
References. — Bright, iv. 2S6, 339, 501 ; Eaton, Civil Service in 

Great Britain. 

402. Palmerston and the British War Spirit. 
Topic. 

1. War with China and Palmerston's appeal to the country. 
Reference. — Bright, iv. 274, 289-291. 

403. The Sepoy Mutiny in India. 
Topics. 

1. Conditions of English control in India. 

2. Causes of the mutiny and attitude of the Indian people. 



630 GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 

3. First successes of the Sepoys. 

4. English heroism and end of the mutiny. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 952-955 ; Bright, iv. 292-328 ; Traill, 
vi. 258, 259, 269, 270 ; McCarthy, ii. chs. xxxii-xxxv. 

404. Change of Ministry. 
Topics. 

1. Palmerston defeated. 

2. Derby-Disraeli ministry and Palmerston again. 

3. Gladstone's budget. 

4. Post-office savings banks 

5. Death of Prince Albert. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 955, 956 ; Bright, iv. 385-394, 408. 

405. The Civil War in America. 
Topics. 

1. Opposing English opinions as to the war. 

2. Confederate privateers. 

3. The steadfastness of the friends of the American Union. 

4. America's claims against England. 

References. — Bright, iv. 372-385. The Alabama : Gardiner, iii. 
958, 965, 966; Bright, iv. 377, 378, 489-491 ; McCarthy, ii. 206- 
228, 481, 511-520. Cotton famine : Traill, vi. 432. 

Research Questions. — (1.) How does cotton rank in importance 
among manufacturing fibres? (2.) What country furnishes the 
greatest supply of raw cotton ? (3.) What other countries produce 
it in marketable quantities ? 

406. Russell's Second Ministry. 
Topics. 

1. Insurrections. 

2. New reform bill and resignation. 
Reference. — Bright, iv. 413-415, 419, 420. 

407. The Fenian Movement. 
Topics. 

1. Plot of Irishmen. 

2. Help from America. 
Reference. — Bright, iv. 415-419. 

408. The Second Reform of Parliament. 
Topic. 

1. Extension of the franchise. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 63 1 

References, — Bright, iv. 421-429 ; Gardiner, iii. 961 ; Montague, 
208-210; H.Taylor, ii. 533-536;. Tasvvell-Langmead, 729-731: 
May, ii. 584-590; McCarthy, ii. ch. Iii. 

409. The Dominion of Canada. 

Topic. 

1. Act of confederation. 
Reference. — Bright, iv. 433-435. 

410. A New Period of Reform. 
Topics. 

1. Gladstone elected to redress Irish grievances. 

2. Reform accomplished by Gladstone's ministry. 

3. Defeat of Gladstone. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 962-966. Education Act of 1870: 
Bright, iv. 462-466; H. Taylor, ii. 580-582; May, ii. 568-571, 
600, 601 ; McCarthy, ii. 481-486. Land Act of 1870: Bright, iv. 
454-461; McCarthy, ii. 471-479. 

411. The " Imperial Policy " of Disraeli. 
Topics. 

1. Character of this policy and the result of it. 

2. Defeat of Disraeli. 

References. — McCarthy, England under Gladstone, ch. i. ; 
Bright, iv. 507-567. 

412. The Land League and the Home Rule Party in 
Ireland. 

Topics. 

1. Condition of Irelannd. 

2. Opposition of Parnell to the Liberals. 

References. — Gardiner, iii. 970-972: McCarthy, England un- 
der Gladstone, ch. vi. 

413. The Third Reform of Parliament. 
Topic. 

1. Increased representation of the people and its results. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 972 ; McCarthy, England under 

Gladstone, ch. xvi. 

414. Mr. Gladstone's First Irish Home Rule Bill. 
Topics. 

1. General Gordon. 



632 GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 

2. Gladstone's defeat and return to power. 

3. First Home Rule bill. 

Reference. — McCarthy, England under Gladstone, ch. xv. 

415. Conservatives and Liberal Unionists in Power. 
Topics. 

1. The coalition ministry. 

2. Dispute with the United States and partition of Africa. 

3. County councils.- 

References. — Local Government Acts: Montague, 227, 228 : H. 
Taylor, ii. S77S79- 

416. Mr. Gladstone's Last Effort for Ireland. 
Topics. 

1. Gladstone's support. 

2. Second Home Rule bill. 

3. Gladstone's resignation. 

4. Parish councils. 

417. The Third Salisbury Ministry. 
Tones. 

1. Chamberlain and Salisbury. 

2. Quiet in Ireland. 

3. Venezuela boundary question. 

4. Trouble with the Boers. 

References. — Bagehot, English Constitution, chs. i.. iii., iv., and 
v. : H. Taylor, ii. 544 sqq. 

Research Questions. — (1.) What is meant by a cabinet govern- 
ment? (2.) How long has it been in force in England? (3.) 
Was Walpole's government that of a cabinet ? (4.) How could 
it be characterized ? (5.) What sort of government preceded 
Walpole's time ? (6.) What again preceded that ? (7.) Who are 
members of the English cabinet? (Montague, 215, 222.) (8.) 
What is the difference between the cabinet and the ministry ? 
(9.) What is the difference between the cabinet ministers of Eng- 
land and the members of the cabinet of the United States? 
(Ransome, 254, 255.) (10.) In what ways is the English the bet- 
ter system? (Ransome, 255, 256.) (11.) What are the three nat- 
ural divisions of any government? (12.) Should the depart- 
ments be entirely separate? (13.) Which one is represented by 
the English Parliament? (14.) Who represent the executive in 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND QUESTIONS. 633 

England? (15.) Are the powers of the Queen and Parliament 
entirely separate? (Ransome, 251.) (16.) How did this come 
about? (Ransome, 251.) (17.) What are the sovereign's duties? 
(Ransome, 253.) (18.) What provisions are made for the crown's 
expenditures? (Tasvvell-Langmead, 709.) (19.) How are the 
judges appointed in England ? (Ransome, 25S.) 

418. " The Diamond Jubilee" of Queen Victoria. 

Topic. 

1. Victoria's sixtieth anniversary. 

419. The British-Boer War. 

Topics. 

1. Early migrations of Dutch colonists. 

2. Concession of independence by Great Britain in 1854. 

3. Cause and result of British-Boer war of 1880. 

4. Seeds of strife which led to the second war. 

5. Jameson's raid and the Outlanders' grievances. 

6. The second British-Boer war. 

Research Question. — (1.) What is the significance of the colo- 
nies volunteering aid in the defence of the Empire? 

420. Literature and Science in the Victorian Age. 

Topics. 

1. Three great periods in literature. 

2. Great names in poetry of Victorian period. 

3. In fiction and descriptive prose. 

4. Wonderful advance in the scientific realm. 
References. — Gardiner, iii. 887-890,940-943; Guest, 574-587; 

Traill, vi. 25-35, 1 51—167, 275-284, 510-520; McCarthy; i. ch. 
xxix., ii. ch. lxvii. 



APPENDIX. 

THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN 1899. 1 
(See map on back lining.) 

Area. Population. 

Sq. M. 

The United Kingdom of Great 

Britain and Ireland .... 120,979 4°*559>954 

Colonies, Dependencies, and Military Possessions. 

In Europe : 

Gibraltar, Malta, and Gozo . 119 204,421 

In Asia : 

India (British) 1,068,314 221,172,952 

India (Feudatory) .... 73^944 66,050,479 

Ceylon, Straits Settlements 

(Singapore, etc.), Hong Kong, 

Labuan, Aden, Perim . . . 27,321 4,3 6 3> 2 57 

In Africa : 

Cape Colony, Natal, Basuto- 
land, Zululand, Gambia, Gold 
Coast, Lagos, Sierra Leone, 
Ascension, Mauritius, St. Hel- 
ena 3 6 7>9 28 ^S 1 ^ 80 

In America and the West In 
dies : 
Canada, Newfoundland, Lab- 
rador, British Guiana, British 
Honduras, Jamaica, Bermu- 

1 Statesman'' s Year Book, /goo. 



APPENDIX. 635 

das, Bahamas, Barbados, Trin- 
idad, Turks' Island, Tobago, 
Leeward Islands, Windward 
Islands, Falkland Islands, 
South Georgia 3>95 2 >57 2 7,260,169 

In Australasia : 

Victoria, New South Wales, 
South Australia, West Aus- 
tralia, Queensland, New Zea- 
land, New Guinea, Tasmania, 
Fiji 3,175,840 5,009,281 

Total of United Kingdom 
with Colonies, Depend- 
encies, and Military Pos- 
sessions 9,445,017 349>55 2 > 2 93 

Protectorates and " Spheres of Influence." 

In Asia 120,400 1,200,000 

In Africa 2,160,000 35,000,000 

In the Pacific 800 30,000 

Total of Protectorates, etc. 2,281,200 36,230,000 
Total Empire 11,726,217 385,782,293 



A WORKING LIBRARY. 

The following books are referred to in Larned's His- 
tory of England, either in the text or in the topics and 
questions. They are arranged in the numerical order 
of reference, the first being referred to over 200 times, 
the last 10 times : — 

1. Gardiner, S. R. A Student's History of England. 3 vols. 
Longmans, New York. $3.00 net. 

2. Bright, James F. History of England. 4 vols. Longmans, 
New York. #6.75. 

3. Green, J. R. A Short History of the English People. 
Harpers, New York. $1.20. 

4. Traill, H. D. Social England. 6 vols. Putnams, New 
York. $21.00. 

5. Guest, M. J., and Underwood, F. H. A Handbook of Eng- 
lish History. Macmillan, New York. $0.75. 

6. Colby, C. W. Selections from the Sources of English His- 
tory. Longmans, New York. $1.50. 

7. Montague, F. C. Elements of English Constitutional His- 
tory. Longmans, New York. #1.25. 

8. Ransome, Cyril. Rise of Constitutional Government in 
England. Longmans, New York. $2.00. 

9. Taswell-Langmead. English Constitutional History. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $6.00. 

10. Taylor, H. The English Constitution. 2 vols. Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., Boston. $9.00. 

11. Gibbins, Henry de Beltgens. Industrial History of Eng- 
land. Scribners, New York. $1.20. 

12. Cunningham and McArthur. Outlines of English Indus- 
trial History. Macmillan, New York. $1.50. 

13. Moberly, C. E. The Early Tudors. Longmans, New 
York. $1.00. 

14. Stubhs, W. The Early Plantagenets. Epoch Series. Long- 
mans, New York. $1.00. 



V 



APPENDIX. 637 

v 15. Stubbs, William. Constitutional History. 3 vols. Clar- 
endon Press, New York. $2.60 each. 
[^ 16. Gairdner, J. Houses of Lancaster and York. Longmans, 
New York. #1.00. 

17. Creighton, Bishop M. The Age of Elizabeth. Epoch 
Series. Longmans, New York. $1.00. 

18. Hale, E. The Fall of the Stuarts. Epoch Series. Long- 
mans, New York. $1.00. 

Z' 19. Harrison, F. Oliver Cromwell. Twelve English States- 
men Series. Macmillan, New York. #0.75. 

20. Gardiner, S. R. The Puritan Revolution. Epoch Series. 
Longmans, New York. #1.00. 

Gardiner, S. R. Atlas of English History. Longmans, New 
York. #1.50 net. 
V^ 21. Rogers, J. E. T. Six Centuries of Work and Wages. 

Sonnenschein & Co., London. 10s. 6d. 
V 22. Green, J. R. History of the English People. 8 vols. Mac- 
millan, New York. #1.25 per vol. 
\/ 23. Macaulay, Lord. History of England. 4 vols. Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $5.00. 

24. McCarthy, Justin. History of Our Own Times. 2 vols. 
Harpers, New York. #2.50. 

25. Beesly, Edward S. Queen Elizabeth. Twelve English 
Statesmen Series. Macmillan, New York. $0.75. 



AN ADDITIONAL LIST OF BOOKS 

VALUABLE IN THE FORMATION OF A LIBRARY OF 
ENGLISH HISTORY. 

This list is arranged alphabetically. Nearly all of the 
books are referred to in Larned's History, but a few 
have been added to give a greater comprehensiveness to 
the list : — 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. See Bede. 

Ashley, William J. Introduction to English Economic His- 
tory and Theory. 2 parts. Longmans, New York. Part I. $1.25; 
Part II. $2.60. 

Bagehot, Walter. English Constitution. Appleton, New 
York. $2.00. 



638 APPENDIX. 

•^ Bagehot, Walter. Lombard Street. Kegan Paul, Trench, 

Triibner & Co., London. 3s. 6d. 
*J Bede, Venerable. Ecclesiastical History with Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle (Bohn). Macmillan, New York. #1.50. 

Brewer, John S. Reign of Henry VIII. to Death of Wolsey. 
2 vols. J. Murray, London. 
V Bulfinch, Thomas. Age of Chivalry. Lee & Shepard, Boston. 

$2.50. 
^/ Bulwer, Edward G. (Lord Lytton). Harold. George Rout- 
ledge & Sons, New York. #0.60. 

Busch, Wilhelm. England under the Tudors. Innes & Co., 
London. Vol. i. 16s. net. 
v~/ Caesar, Julius. Commentaries (Classical Library). Harpers, 
New York. $0.75. 

Church, Alfred John. Heroes of Chivalry and Romance. 
Macmillan, New York. $1.75. 

Church, R. W. Beginnings of the Middle Ages. Longmans, 
New York. $1.00. 

Clark, George T. Mediaeval Military Architecture in Eng- 
land. 2 vols. Wyman & Sons, London. 

Creasy, Sir Edward S. Fifteen Decisive Battles. Harpers, 
New York. $1.00. 

Creighton, <£. Cardinal Wolsey. Twelve English Statesmen 
Series. Macmillan, New York. $0.75. 

Creighton, Bishop M. Simon de Montfort. Longmans, New 
York. #1.00. 

Cunningham, W. Growth of English Industry and Commerce. 
2 vols. Macmillan, New York. Early and Middle Ages, $4.00 ; 
Modern Times, $4.50. 

Dixon, Canon. History of the Church of England. 4 vols. 
Geo. Routledge & Sons, New York. $4.00 per vol. 

Encyclopaedia Britannica. 24 vols. Adam & Chas. Black, 
London. 

Freeman, E. A. Growth of the English Constitution. Mac- 
millan, New York. #1.75. 

Freeman, E. A. Old English History. Macmillan, New York. 
$1.50. 

Freeman, E. A. History of the Norman Conquest. 6 vols. 
Clarendon Press, Oxford. $5.25 each. Vol. vi., Index. $2.75. 

Freeman, E. A. Short History of the Norman Conquest. 
Clarendon Press, New York. $0.60. 



APPENDIX. 639 

Freeman, E. A. William the Conqueror. Twelve English 
'" Statesmen Series. Macmillan, New York. $0.75- 

Friedmann, Paul. AnneBoleyn. Macmillan, New York. 2 

vols. $7.00. 

Froude, James A. History of England. 12 vols. Scnbners, 

New York. $18.00. , 

/ Gairdner,J. Henry VII. Twelve English Statesmen Series. 

Macmillan, New York. $0.75. 

V Gardiner, S. R. History of England, 1603-1642. 10 vols. 
Longmans, New York. $20.00. 

Gardiner, S. R. Great Civil War, 1642-1649- 4 vols. Long- 
mans, New York. $2.00 each. 
X Gardiner, S. R. Commonwealth and Protectorate. 2 vols. 
Longmans, New York. $7-°° each. 

V Gilbart, J. W. von. On Banking. 2 vols. Bohn. Geo. Bell 

& Sons, London. 10s. 

Gneist, Dr. Rudolf. History of the English Constitution. 
Wm. Clowes & Sons, London. 7s. 6d. 
^/ Green, J. R. Making of England. 2 vols. Macmillan, New 
York. $2.50. 

V Green, Mrs. J. R. Henry II. Twelve English Statesmen 
Series. Macmillan, New York. $0.75. 

Hallam, Henry. Constitutional History of England. Mr. 
Murray, London. Student's Edition, 7s. 6d. 
v/ Howell, George. Conflict of Capital and Labor. Macmillan, 

New York. $1.85. 

Hughes, T. Life of Alfred the Great. Macmillan, New York. 

$1.00. . 

V Johnson, A. H. Normans in Europe. Longmans, New York. 

$1.00. ., >T 

Lanier, Sidney. The Boys' King Arthur. Scnbners, New 

York. $2.00. 

Lappenberg, Johann Martin. A History of England under 
the Saxon Kings. Bohn. 2 vols. Geo. Bell & Sons, London. 

3s. 6d. per vol. 

Larned, J. N. History for Ready Reference. 5 vols. Nichols, 

Springfield, Mass. $25.00. 

Lecky, W. E. H. History of England in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury. 8 vols. Appleton, New York. $20.00. 

Lingard, Rev. John. History of England. 10 vols. Cum- 
miskey, Philadelphia. 



640 APPENDIX. 

Macaulay, Lord. Essays (Clive and Warren Hastings). Long- 
mans, New York. Clive #0.75 ; Hastings $0.50. 
V* Macaulay, Lord. Essay on Milton. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
Boston. $0.25. » 

Mahan, A. T. Life of Nelson. 2 vols. Little, Brown & Co., 
Boston. $8.00. 

Mahan, A. T. Influence of Sea Power on the French Revolu- 
tion and Empire. 2 vols. Little, Brown & Co. $6.00. 

Mahon, Earl Stanhope. History of England 1701-1-783. 9 
vols. Mr. Murray, London. 5s. per vol. 
\s Maitland, F. W. Domesday Book and Beyond. Little, Brown 
& Co., Boston. $4.50 net. 

May, Sir T. E. Constitutional History of England. 3 vols. 
Longmans, New York. #4.50. 

McCarthy, Justin. England under Gladstone. Chatto & 
Windus, London. 6s. 

Morley, John. Walpole. Twelve English Statesmen Series. 
Macmillan, New York. $0.75. 

V Morris, E. E. Age of Anne. Longmans, New York. $1.00. 
Morris, E. E. Early Hanoverians. Longmans, New York. 

$1.00. 

Motley, J. L. History of the United Netherlands. 4 vols. 
Mr. Murray, London. 6s. per vol. 
v Pattison, Mark. Life of Milton. Harpers, New York. #0.75. 

Pauli, Dr. R. Alfred the Great (Bohn). Macmillan, New 
York. $1.50. 

V Pearson, C. H. History of England during the Early and 
Middle Ages. 2 vols. Bell & Daldy, London. 

Pollock, Sir F., and Maitland, F. W. History of English 
Law before the Time of Edward I. 2 vols. Little, Brown & Co., 
Boston. $9.00 net. 

Ranke, L. vox. History of England. 6 vols. Clarendon Press, 
New York. #16.00. 
Is Rhys, Prof. John. Celtic Britain. E. and J. B. Young & Co., 
New York. $0.75. 

Ripley, William Z. Races of Europe. 2 vols. Appleton, 
New York. $6.00. 

Rogers. J. E. T. History of Agriculture and Prices in England. 
8 vols. Clarendon Press, New York. Vols. i. and ii. (1 259-1400) 
$10.50 ; vols. iii. and iv. (1401-1582) #12.50 ; vols. v. and vi. (1583- 
1702) $12.50; vols. vii. and viii. (in press). 



APPENDIX. 641 

P Rosebery, Lord. Pitt. Twelve English Statesmen Series. 
Macmillan, New York. $0.75. 

Seeley, Sir John R. Expansion of England. Little, Brown 
& Co., Boston. $1.75. 

Seeley, Sir John R. Growth of British Policy. 2 vols. Mac- 
millan, New York. $3.50. 
v/! Southey, Robert. Life of Nelson. Macmillan, New York. 

$0.50. 
v/ Stubbs, William, Editor. Select Charters, etc., of English 

Constitutional History. Clarendon Press, New York.. $2.10. 
^y Tacitus. Agricola and Germania. Macmillan, New York. 

$0.90. 
\S Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. Harold. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
Boston. Tennyson, Cambridge Edition. $2.00. 
• Thursfield, J. R. Peel. Twelve English Statesmen Series. 
Macmillan, New York. $0.75. 

Tout, T. F. Edward I. Twelve English Statesmen Series. 
Macmillan, New York. $0.75. 

Traill, H. D. William III. Twelve English Statesmen Series. 
Macmillan, New York. $0.75. 

Turner, Sharon. History of the Anglo-Saxons. 2 vols. 
a- Vinogrado^f, Paul. Villanage in England. Clarendon Press, 
Oxford. $4.00. 

Walpole, Spencer. History of England from 1815. 6 vols. 
Longmans, New York. $2.00 per vol. 

Warburton, W. Edward III. Longmans, New York. $1.00. 
L Wylie, J. H. History of England under Henry IV. 4 vols, 
Longmans, New York. $20.50. 



ILLUSTRATIVE FICTION IN POETRY AND 
PROSE. 

The following is a selection of the more notable dramas, 
romances, and poems which have been founded on historical 
events, or on legends growing out of historical events, or 
written to illustrate the state of the country and the life of 
the people in different periods of English history. 

Celtic and Roman Britain. Drama : the Cymbeline of 
Shakespeare. Poem : the Boadicea of Tennyson. Romance : 
The Count of the Saxon Shore, by A. J. Church ; The Villa oj 
Claudius, by E. L. Cutts. 

Legendary King Arthur and his Knights. Malory's 
Morte d' Arthur, ed. by Wright; The Mabinogion, translated 
by Lady Guest ; Ellis's Specimens of Early English Romances ; 
Tennyson's Idyls of the King and The Holy Grail; Matthew 
Arnold's Tristram and Iscult ; Swinburne's Tristram of 
Lyonesse ; Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal; Lanier's 
Boy's King Arthur and Boy's Mabinogion ; Bulfinch's Age of 
Chivalry. 

Early England. Edwin of Deira, a poem, by Alexander 
Smith ; Old English Song of the Eight at Maldon (translated 
by Prof. Freeman in Old English History for Children ; also, 
in part, by Lanier, in the Atlantic Monthly for August, 1898). 

Early Scotland. Shakespeare's Macbeth. 

Alfred the Great and the Danes. Alfred the Great, at 
Athelnay, a drama, by Stratford Canning ; Scouring the White 
Horse (relating to King Alfred), by Thomas Hughes; Edwin 
the Fair, a drama, by Henry Taylor ; The Duke of Mercia, a 
drama (of the time of Edmund Ironside), by Aubrey de Vere ; 
Canute the Great, a drama, by Michael Field, pseud. ; King 
Canute, a ballad, by Thackeray. 



APPENDIX. 643 

The Norman Conquest. Tennyson's Harold (a drama) ; 
Bulwer-Lytton's Harold, tin: Last of the Saxon Kings ; Charles 
Kingsley's Hereward the Wake, Last of the English (a tale). 

William Rufus. Landor's Walter Tyrrel and William 
Rufus (in Aets and Scenes) ; William Rufus, a drama, by 
Michael Field, pseud. 

Henry II. and Thomas a Becket. Dramas : Becket, by 
Tennyson; St. Thomas of Canterbury, by Aubrey de Vere ; 
Henry II., by Arthur Helps ; Thomas a Becket, by Douglas 
Jerrold. 

Robin Hood and the time of Richard Cceur de 
Lion. English and Scottish Popular Ballads, ed. by Prof. 
Child, part 5 ; Ritson's collection of the ballads of Robin 
Hood ; Tennyson's The Foresters (a drama of Robin Hood) ; 
Scott's Ivanhoe ; Landor's Richard I. and the Abbot of Boxley 
(in Imaginary Conversations) ; Pyle's Merry Adventures of 
Robin Hood. 

Magna Carta and the Beginnings of the English 
House of Commons. Shakespeare's King John ; The 
Constable of the Tower (a tale of the time of John), by Miss 
Yonge ; Palgrave's The Merchant and the Friar (reign of 
Edward I.) ; Peard's Prentice Hugh. 

The Reigns of Edward II. and III. and Richard II. 
Edward the Second, a tragedy, by Marlowe ; Edward the 
Third, a drama sometimes ascribed, in whole or part, to 
Shakespeare ; Shakespeare's King Richard the Second ; Y,zx\- 
dor's John of Gaunt and Joanna of Kent (in Imaginary Conver- 
sations) • Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and Langland's Vision 
and Creed of Piers Plow?nan (contemporary poems repre- 
sentative of the time) ; Child's English and Scottish Popular 
Ballads, part 5 ; Miss Yonge's Lances of Lynwood (a tale). 

The Lollards. A Dream of f ohn Ball, by William 
Morris ; fack of the Mill, by William Howitt. 

The Lancastrian Kings. Shakespeare's King Henry 
the Fourth, King Henry the Fifth, and King Henry the Sixth ; 
Henry IV. and Sir Arnold Savage, by Landor (in Imaginary 



644 APPENDIX. 

Conversations) ; Tlie Caged Lion (romance of the captivity of 
James I. of Scotland), by Miss Yonge ; A Noble Purpose, by 
Anne Manning. 

Joan of Arc. The Maid of Orleans, a drama, from the 
German of Schiller ; Jeanne Dare, a drama, by Tom Taylor. 

The Wars of the Roses, and the Yorkist Kings. 
The Last of the Barons, by Bulwer-Lytton ; The Black Arrow, 
by Robert Louis Stevenson ; The Chantry Priest of Barnet, 
by A. J. Church ; The York and Lancaster Rose, by Annie 
Keary ; Shakespeare's King Richard the Third. 

The Reign of Henry VII. The Fortunes of Perkin 
Warbeck, by Mrs. Shelley. 

Henry VIII. and his Times. Shakespeare's King 
LLetiry the Eighth ; dramas relating to Anne Boleyn, by Dean 
Mrlman, Tom Taylor, and George H. Boker ; Scott's poems of 
Marmion, a tale of Flodden Field, and The Lady of the Lake 
(James V.) ; Henry VJLL. and Anne Boleyn, by Landor (in Acts 
and Scenes and in Jmaginary Conversations) ; The Household of 
Sir Thomas More and The Lincolnshire Tragedy, by Anne 
Manning ; The Armourer 's Prentices, by Miss Yonge ; When 
Knighthood was in Flower (a love story of the second mar- 
riage of Mary Tudor), by Charles Major. 

The Reign of Edward VI. and Lady Jane Grey. 
Colloquies of Edward Osborne, a tale, by Anne Manning ; 
The Tragedy of Lady fane Grey, by Nicholas Rowe ; Roger 
Ascham and Lady fane Grey, by Landor (in Lmaginary Con- 
versations). 

Queen Mary Tudor and her Reign. The Famous His- 
tory of Sir Thomas IVyatt, a drama, by Dekker and Webster ; 
Queen Mary, a drama, by Tennyson ; Mary Tudor, a drama, 
by Aubrey de Vere ; Tioixt Axe and Crown, or the Lady 
Elizabeth, a drama, by Tom Taylor ; The Story of Francis 
Cludde, by Stanley J. Weyman ; Princess Mary and Princess 
Elizabeth, by Landor (in Lmaginary Conversations). 

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Mary Stuart, a tragedy, 
by Schiller ; Bothwell, Chastelard, Mary Stuart, three dramas, 



APPENDIX. 645 

by Swinburne ; Mary and Bothwell, by Landor (in Imaginary 
Conversations) ; Unknown to History, a tale, by Miss Yonge ; 
The Queens Maries, by Whyte-Melville. 

Shakespeare. Citation and Examination of William 
Shakespeare before the Worshipful Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight, 
touching Deer-stealing, by Landor ; The Youth of Shakespeare 
and Shakespeare and his Friends, novels by R. F. Williams ; 
Judith Shakespeare, a novel by Black. 

The . Elizabethan Sea-Rovers, and the Spanish 
Armada. Westward Ho, by Charles Kingsley ; In the Days 
of Drake, by J. S. Fletcher; The Armada, a poem, by Ma- 
caulay. 

Other Events and Persons in the Time of Queen 
Elizabeth. The Beggar of Bethnal Green, a drama, by 
Sheridan Knowles ; The White Doe of Rylstone, a poem, by 
Wordsworth ; Kenilworth, by Scott ; Queen Elizabeth and 
Cecil, and Queen Elizabeth, Cecil, the Duke of Anjou, and 
Fenelon, by Landor (in Imaginary Conversations) ; Maelcho 
and With Essex in Ireland, by Emily Lawless. 

The Reign of James I. The Fortunes of Nigel, by 
Scott ; James I and Isaac Casaubon, by Landor (in Imagi- 
nary Conversations). 

Charles I. and the Civil War. Charles the First, a 
drama, by Shelley ; Strafford, an Historical Tragedy, by Rob- 
ert Browning (published, with an introduction, by Prof. S. R. 
Gardiner, and notes by Emily H. Hickey) ; Charles the First, 
an Historical Tragedy, by Miss Mitford ; Rokeby, a poem, by 
Scott ; Legend of Montrose, by Scott ; Memoirs of a Cavalier, 
by Defoe ; The Splendid Spur, a romance, by Arthur T. 
Quiller Couch ; The Draytons and the Davenants, by Mrs. 
Charles ; John Inglesant, by J. N. Short house ; Under the 
Storm, by Miss Yonge ; With the King at Oxford, by A. J. 
Church ; Admiral Blake and Humphrey Blake, by Landor (in 
Imaginary Conversations). 

The Commonwealth. The satirical poem, Hudibras, 
by Samuel Butler; Scott's romance, Woodstock; On Both 



646 APPENDIX. 

Sides of the Sea (a sequel to The Draytons and the Dave- 
nauts), by Mrs. Charles ; Pigeon J'ic, a tale of Roundhead 
Times, by Miss Yonge ; Scapegrace Dick, by Frances M. 
Peard ; Saxby, a tale of Old and New England, by Emma 
Leslie. 

Cromwell and the Protectorate. Cromwell, a poem, 
by Matthew Arnold ; Cromwell, a drama, from the French of 
Victor Hugo ; Oliver Cromwell and Walter Noble, Oliver 
Cromwell and Sir Oliver Cromwell, and Milton and Andrew 
Marvel, by Landor (in Imaginary Conversations) ; Deborah's 
Diary (Deborah being Milton's daughter) and The Maiden 
and Married Life of Mary Powell, afterwards Mistress Mil- 
ton, by Anne Manning ; John Milton and his Times, a histori- 
cal novel, from the German of Max Ring ; Cromwell's Own, 
by Arthur Paterson. 

Restoration Times and Persons. Peveril of the Peak, 
by Scott ; History of the Great Plague in London, by De Foe ; 
Cherry and Violet, a tale of the great plague, by Anne Man- 
ning; In the East Country with Sir Thomas Browne, and Ln 
the Service of Pad/el, Lady Russell, by Mrs. Emma Marshall; 
Caleb Pield, by Mrs. Oliphant ; Lorna Doone, a romance of 
Exmoor, by R. D. Blackmore. 

Dryden's Political Poems. Annus Mirabilis, the Year 
of Wonders, 1666 (relating to the naval war with the Dutch 
and the great fire) ; Absalom and Achitophcl (relating to the 
intrigues of Shaftesbury with the Duke of Monmouth) ; The 
Hind and the Panther (in sympathy with the Roman Church, 
as against the persecuting Church of England). 

Monmouth's Rebellion. For Faith and Freedom, a tale, 
by Walter Besant ; Mieah Clarke, by A. Conan Doyle ; The 
Danvers Papers, by Miss Yonge ; The Duke of Monmouth, 
by Gerald Griffin. 

The Times of William and Mary, and of Anne. 
Sir Roger de Coverley (papers from The Spectator), by Addi- 
son ; The History of Henry Esmond, by Thackeray ; Shrews- 
bury, by Stanley J. Weyman ; The Tale of a Tub (a satire on 



APPENDIX. 647 

the contentions of the Roman, English, and Presbyterian 
churches) and Gulliver 's Travels (a satire on English parties 
and politics and on society in general), by Dean Swift ; His- 
tory of John Bull, by Arbuthnot. 

Life and Society in the Time of the First Georges. 
The Dunciad (a satire on the writers of the time), by Pope ; 
The History of Clarissa Harlowe, Pamela, and The History 
of Sir Charles Grandison (contemporary tales), by Richard- 
son ; The Virginians, by Thackeray ; The Diary of Mrs. Kitty 
Trevylyan, a story oj the times of Whitefield and the Wesleys, 
by Mrs. Charles ; The Chaplain of the Fleet, by Besant and 
Rice ; The World went very well then, by Besant. 

The Jacobites and the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745. 
Rob Roy, Red Gauntlet, and Waverley, by Scott ; Kidnapped 
and David Balfour, by Stevenson ; Spanish fohn, by William 
McLennan ; Cerise, by Whyte-Melville ; Dorothy Forster, by 
Besant. 

Life and Society in the Reign of George III. The 
Citizen of the World (letters purporting to be written by a 
Chinese philosopher, from London), by Oliver Goldsmith ; 
the novels of Jane Austen ; Brcicebridge Hall, by Washington 
Irving ; Vanity Fair, by Thackeray ; Saint Ronan's Well, by 
Scott ; Adam Bede and Silas Marner, by George Eliot. 

The Gordon Riots. Barnaby Rudge, by Dickens. 

The Reform Agitations and Chartism. Felix Holt, 
the Radical, by George Eliot ; Alton Locke and Yeast, by 
Charles Kingsley ; Sybil, or the Two Nations, by Disraeli. 

The Famine in Ireland. The Black Prophet, by Carle- 
ton ; Mike, by E. N. Hoare ; Castle Richmond, by Anthony 
Trollope ; Castle Daly, by Annie Keary. 



INDEX 

In this Index the pronunciation of difficult words is shown in parentheses ; the 
geographical location of places mentioned in the text is indicated by the word map, fol- 
lowed by the page number and the key letters showing position upon the map. 



Aberdeen (aberdeen') Ministry, the, 608- 

9. 
Aboukir (aboo'kir) Bay, 558 ; map, 574. 

Fc. 
Absolutism, the growth of, in the lGth 

century, 248. 
Academy, the French, 343. 
Acre (a'ker or a'ker), siege of, 558 ; map, 

574, Fc. 
Act of Settlement, the, 485. 
Addington, Henry, 572-3. 
Addison, Joseph, 498, 584. 
Addled Parliament, the. 361. 
Adela (ad'ela) daughter of William I., 98. 
Acadia (aca'dia), 501 ; map (Nova Scotia), 

end lining, Gc. 
Afghanistan (afgamstan'), disaster in, 

(1839), 597 ; (1879), 017 ; map, 520, Aa. 
Africa, European partition of, British- Boer 

War, 509, 017, G20, 022-7 ; map, end 

lining, Le. 
Agincourt (azhankoor'), battle of, 214; 

map, 110, Dc. 
Agitators of the army, 415. 
Agreement of the People, the, 417. 
Aidan, St., his mission to England, 29. 
Aix-la-Chapelle (akslashapeT'), the treaty 

of, 522 ; map, 574, Ca. 
•' Alabama claims,'' the, 013-14, 016. 
Alban, the kingdom of, 45 ; map (Scots), 

19. 
Alberoni (albaro'ne) 479-80. 
Albert, Prince, 598, 008, 012. 
Alcuin (Sl'kwTn), 31. 
Aldhelm, or Ealdhelm, 32, 44. 
Alexandria, 254 ; mop, 574, Ec. 
Alexander VI., pope, 206. 
Alford (awl'ford), map, 313. 
Alfred the Great, his life and work (with 

map and portrait), 39-42. 
Alma (al'ma), battle of the, 609 ; map, 57 1. 

Fb. 
Alsace (alsas'), acquisition and loss by 

France, 494, 508 ; map, 574. Cb. 
America : The gifts of Engianu to, v ; the 

discovery of, and its effects, 202. 205; 

discoveries by the Cabots, 201 ; colonial 

settlement, 348, 357-8, 470, 522-3. See, 

also, United States. 
American history, its connection with Eng- 
lish, v. 



Amiens (ii'mian), peace of, 571 ; map, 110, 
Dc. 

Amsterdam, 254 ; map, 574, Ca. 

Angeln (ang'eln), the old English home, 15; 
map, 16. 

Angevin (an'gevTns) empire, the, 109 ; its 
loss by the English kings, 136. 

Anglo-Saxon arts and conditions of life, 
43-5. 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the, 15, 17, 42, 94, 
100. 

Anglo-Saxon society and institutions, 21-6, 
43. 

Anjou (onzhoo'), in the dominion of Henry 
II. and his sons, 109 ; its loss, 130 ; Eng- 
lish kings of the Angevin House, 130; 
map, 110, Cd. 

Anne, as princess, 458, 407, 495 ; as queen 
(witli portrait), 490-503. 

Anne of Bohemia, 182, 210. 

Anne of Cleves, 270-7. 

Anne of Denmark, 351. 

Anselm, Archbishop, 84, 88. 

Anti-Corn-Law League, 599. 

Antwerp, 254 ; map, 574, Ca. 

Aquitaine (akwetan'), a fief of the French 
crown, 54; its acquisition by Henry II., 
101 ; oppressed by Richard Coeur de 
Lion, 117 ; under the Black Prince, 175 ; 
ceded in full sovereignty to Edward III., 
175; lost by Henry VI., 221 ; map, 110, 
Dd. 

Arab (Sr'ab) conquests, 54-5. 

Aragon (ar'agou), early popular institutions 
in, 133, 150 ; map, 574, Bb. 

Arbitration, Geneva, the, GIG. 

Arbuthnot (ar'buthnot), John, 498. 

Archer, mediaeval, picture of, 170. 

Architecture, mediaeval development of, 
57-8, 134. 

Argyle (argyle') rebellion, the, 462. 

Aristocracy, early growth of, 24-6. 

Arkwriglit's invention, 540. 

Arlette (ar'lgtte), or Herleva, 59. 

Armada, the Invincible (with picture), 
325-7. 

Armagnacs (armanyak'), 1G2, 213-15. 

Army : Mutiny Act, 487 ; sale of commis- 
sions abolished, 010. 

Arnold, Matthew, 628. 



650 



INDEX. 



Art : the 13th century revival in Italy, 134, 
164 ; of the 15th century in Italy, 203 ; in 
the 10th century, 254. See, also, Archi- 
tecture, and Music. 

Arthur, King, the legends of, 21, 57, ( J5, 
102, 120. 

Arthur, of Brittany, 135. 

Arts, Anglo-Saxon, 43-5. 

Ashburton treaty, the, 601. 

Asperu, battle of, 580 ; map, 574, Db. 

Assize (assize') of Arms, the, 120. 

Assize of Clarendon, the, etc., 119. 

Athelings, 24. 

Athelney (ath'elney), King Alfred at, 40 ; 
map, 42, Bd. 

Attainder of Thomas Cromwell, 277 ; of 
Strafford, 389-90; of Laud, 411. 

Augsburg (augs'bfirg), Religious Peace of, 
251 : map, 574, Db. 

Augustine, St., his mission to the English, 
28. 

Austerlitz (as'terlitz), battle of, 574 ; maj/, 
574, Db. " 

Australia added to the British Empire, 
537 ; participation in Boer War, 627 ; 
map, end lining, Qg. 

Austria : rise of the House of, 132, 163, 205 ; 
the Thirty Years' War, 343-4 ; War of the 
Austrian Succession, 480-81, 520-22; the 
Seven Weeks' War with Prussia, 507 ; 
formation of the Austro-Hungarian Em- 
pire, 568 ; map, 574, Db. 

Austrian-Spanish family power, the, 248-52, 
345. 

Avignon (avenyon'), Babylonian Captivity 
at, 161 ; map, 110, Ee. 

Babington Plot, the, 321-2. 

Babylonian Captivity of the popes, the, 161. 

Bacon, Francis (with portrait), 330-1, 342, 

353, 300. 365. 
Bacon, Roger, 156, 108. 
Balaclava (baTaclii'va), battle of, 600 ; map, 

574, Fb. 
Ball, John (with picture), 180. 
Balliol (bSl'liol), King John I., 152; II., 

168, 171. 
Ballot, introduction of the, 616. 
Banbury); n)ap, 404, Cb. 
Bank of England, the, 496. 
Bannockburn (bainiockbfini'), battle of, 

166 ; map, 313. 
Barbour (biir'ber), John, Scottish poet, 1S5. 
Barebones Parliament, the, 433-4. 
Bamet, battle of, 238; map, 110, Cc. 
Baron's War, the, 145-7. 
Basing House, the storming of, 41:'. ; map, 

404, Cc. 
Bath, the Roman city, 10 ; picture of 

remains of Roman bath, ; map, 8. 
Battle Abbey, 02. 
Bavaria. 4N-J. .-,711 ; map, 574, Db. 
Baxter, Richard, 442. 
Bayeux (bayu') tapestry (with pictures), 

47, 60, 61, 63. 
Bayonne (bayon'), 176; map, 110. Ce. 
Beachy Head, naval battle of, 402 ; maji, 

404, Dc. 



Beaconsfield, Earl of. See Disraeli. Ben- 
jamin. 

Beaton, Cardinal, 278, 288. 

Beaufort (bu'fort), bishop and cardinal, 
217-22. 

Beauforts, the, 221-2, 227. 

Becket, Thomas a (with two pictures), 111— 
14. 

Bede, the Venerable, 31-2, 27-8. 

Bedford, John, Duke of, Protector (with 
portrait), 217-21. 

Bedford, John Russell, fourth Duke of. 
533-6. 

Belfast, map, 358, Da. 

Benevolences, 238. 

Beowulf (ba'owulf or be'owulf ), the epic of, 
30. 

Berkeley Castle, 107 ; map, 110, Cc. 

Berlin (ber'ltn) decree, the, 576 ; map, 
574, Da. 

Bernicia, the kingdom of, 18, 27 ; map, 42, 
Cb. 

Bertha, Queen of Kent, 28. 

Berwick, the storming of, by Edward I., 
152 ; map, 110, Cb. 

Beverages, mediaeval, 105. 

Bible, Wiclif's translation, 181, 185; Tyn- 
dale's translation and its early revisions, 
279 ; Luther's translation, 254 ; " author- 
ized version " of King James, 343. 

Bill of Rights, the, 485. 

Bishops' Wars, the first and second, 388-9. 

Bismarck, Otto von, 507. 

Black Death, the, 101 ; its effects in Eng- 
land, 171-2. 

Black Friars, 198. 

Black Hole of Calcutta, the, 527. 

Black Prince, the, 170, 173-5, 178; view of 
his tomb, 179. 

Blake, Admiral Robert (with portrait), 429- 
31. 

Blenheim (blen'im), battle of, 500; map, 
574, Db. 

Blois (blwii), 98. 

Bloody Assize, the, 463. 

Boccaccio (bokkat'cho), 164. 

Boer (boor) wars, 569, 617, 622-7 ; map. 
025. 

Bohemia, religious reformers of, 206 : in the 
Thirty Years' War, 343-4, 363-4 ; laaji, 
574, Db. 

Boleyn (bool'Tn), Anne (with portrait), 208- 
73. 

Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount, 
501, 503,515. 

Bombay (bombay'), 528 ; map, 526, Be. 

Boniface, 101. 

Bonner, Bishop, 296. 

Bordarii (bc>r-da'iTe), borders, 72, 73. 

Bordeaux (bordo'), 173-4, 176, 201 : map, 
110, Cd. 

Borgia (bSr'ja) (Alexander VI.), 195. 

Boroughs. See Towns. 

" Boroughs, Rotten," 592-4. 

Boscobel, King Charles's oak at, 428. 

Boston : the founding of, 384 ; in the be- 
ginnings of the American Revolution, 
538-9. 



INDEX. 



6 5 I 



Bosworth, battle of, 242 ; map, 110, Cb. 

Bothwell, James Hepburn, Earl of, 315-16. 

Bothwell, Bridge, battle of, 461 ; mop, 313. 

Boulogne (boblon'), 575; map, 110, Dc. 

Bouvines (booven'), the battle of, 1138 ; map, 
110, Dc. 

Boyne, battle of the, 491 ; map (Drog- 
heda), 358, Cb. 

Braddoek's defeat. 524. 

Brandenburg (bran'denboorg), the electo- 
rate of, 344. See, also, Prussia ; map, 
574, Da. 

Breda (brada'), 426 ; map, 574, Ca. 

Brentford, 404; map, 404, Cc. 

Brest, 17(1 ; map, 110, Be. 

Bretigny (bre-ten-ye'), treaty of, 174-5. 

Bretvvalda (bret'walda), the title. 28. 

Brewster, William, picture of residence at 
Scrooby, 3GG. 

Brickmaking, 44, 243. 

Bright, John, 508-0, 010,014. 

Brindley's canal building, 540. 

Bristol : mediaeval slave trade, 114 ; stormed 
by Prince Rupert, 4115; surrendered by 
Rupert, 413; map, 110, Cc. 

Britain : prehistoric inhabitants, 3 ; from 
whom named, 4 ; ancient knowledge of, 
5 ; Cesar's invasion, 5 ; Roman Britain 
(with map), 7-11 ; the English conquest 
(with map), 15-20. See, also, Great Brit- 
ain. 

British-Boer Wars, the, 017, 022-7 ; maj>. 
G25. 

British Empire in 1800 ; area and popula- 
tion, 034-5 ; map, end lining. 

British South Africa Company, 026. 

Britons, the : early civilization, ; under 
the Romans, 7-12 ; conquest or expulsion 
by the English, 15-20. 

Brittany, the flight of Britons to, 20 ; map, 
110, Cc. 

Bronte (brSn'te), Charlotte, 628. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, 442. 

Browning, Robert, 628. 

Brownists, 332. 

Bruce, Robert, claimant of the Scottish 
crown, 152. 

Bruce, Robert, King of Scotland, 153, 108. 

Bruges (brli'jez), 133 ; »/<///, 574, Ca. 

Brythons (Bryth'ous), 4. 

Buckingham, George Villiers, first Duke of, 
as favorite of James I. (with portrait), 
300-1, 304, 307 ; as favorite and minister 
of Charles I., 373-377 ; failure at La Ro- 
chelle, 370-7 ; assassination, 378-9. 

Budget, the, 012. 

Bulgaria (bdolga'rTa), map ; 574, Eb. 

Bunyan , John. 330, 34:;, 442, 408 (with por- 
trait). 
Burgesses, 74. 

Burgundian faction in France, 162, 213-15. 

Burgundy (bur'gundy) : a fief of the 

French crown, 54 ; the great dominion 

of the dukes, and its union with Spain, 

204-5; map, 110, Ed. 

Burhs, 74. 

Burke, Edmund, 530, 543, (with portrait) 
553, 584. 



Burleigh (bfir'le), William Cecil, Lord, 300 ; 

(with portrait), 310. 
Burning at the stake, the first, 210. See, 

also, Persecution. 
Burns, Robert (with portrait), 478, 582-3. 
Burton Agnes, the manor of (plan), 71. 
Busaco (boo-sa'ko), battle of, 570 ; map, 

574, Bb. 
Bute, Lord, 532-3. 
Byng, Admiral, 524. 
Byron, Lord, 583. 
Byzantine (bizan'teen), Empire. See 

Eastern Empire. 

Cabal (cabSP), the, 453. 
Cabinet, the English, first shaping of, 453, 
4; 14 : development under Walpole, 512- 
13. See Ministerial Government. 
Cabot, John and Sebastian, 201. 
Cade's rebellion, 231-2. 
Cadiz expedition, of Drake, 325-6; of 

Charles I., 374; map, 574, Be. 
Caedmon (ked'mon or kSd'mon), the poet, 

31. 
Caen (kon), 215 ; map, 110, Cc. 
Csesar, Julius, in Britain, 5. 
Calais (kala'), siege and capture by Ed- 
ward III., 171 ; loss by the English, 301 ; 
map, 110, Dc. 
Calderon (kaldaron') de la Barca, Pedro, 

343. 
Calendar, the correction of the, 522. 
Calvin, Calvinism, 253, 312, 332. See, also, 

Presbyterians. 
Cambridge University, rise of, 156 ; map, 

404, Db. 
Camden, Lord, 535-G. 
Campbell, Colin, Gil. 
Camperdowrj ( camperdown'), battle of, 

557 ; map, 574, Ca. 
Camp of Refuge in the Fens, 6G. 
Canada, English conquest, 52G, 532 ; rebel- 
lion (Patriot War), union of provinces, 
507 ; Fenian raids, 014-15 ; confederation 
of the Dominion. 015; participation in 
Boer War, 027 ; map, end lining, Ec. 
Canning, Charles John, Earl, Gil. 
Canning, George, 575, 579, (with portrait) 

5S7-8. 
Canningites, 5S8-91. 
Canterbury, the Roman city, 9; map, 42. 

Dd. 
Canterbury, founding of the archbishopric 

of, 28. 
Canterbury Cathedral, transept of (view). 

11:;. 
Canterbury Tales, 184. 
Canute, Danish king of England, 4G. 
Cape Breton, acquisition of, 532. 
Cape Colony taken from Holland, 555, 572 ; 
trekking of the Dutch colonists, G22 ; 
map, G25. 
Cape St. Vincent, battle of, 55G ; map, 574, 

Be. 
Carberry Hill, Mary and Bothwell at, 31G : 

urn /1, 313. 
Carisbrooke Castle, King Charles in, 417. 
Carlisle (kiirlfl').99. 417, 428 ; map, 404, Ba. 



652 



INDEX. 



Carlovingian. See Carolingian. 
Carlyle, Thomas, 628. 
Carolinas, grant of the, 470. 
Caroline. Queen, 587. 

Carolingian, or Carlovingian, kings, 52. 

Carr, Robert, Earl of Somerset, 357, 3C0. 

Carteret Lord (Earl Granville), 515, 520. 

Carthaginian tin trade, 5 ; iiiuj/, 574, Cc. 

Cartwright's invention, 546. 

Casket letters, the, 315. 

Castile (kastel'), early popular institutions 
in, 133, 150 ; map, 574, Bb. 

Castle-building, Norman, G5-G, 243. 

Castlereagh (kaslra') Viscount, 575, 579, 
587. 

Castles, life in mediaeval, 191-2. 

Catherine de Medici (dama'deche), 253, 
288. 

Catherine II. of Russia, 482. 

Catherine, Princess, of France, marriage to 
Henry V., 216. 

Catherine. See, also, Katharine. 

Catholics, Roman, in England, under Henry 
VIII., 272-6; under Edward VI., 290; 
under Mary, 296-300; under Elizabeth, 
308-9, 310, 319-21, 326; under James I., 
352, 353-5, 367; under Charles I.. 37:'.; 
under Cromwell, 434 ; under Charles II., 
450-51, 455-8; under James II., 464-6; 
amelioration of laws, the Gordon riots of 
1780, 541-2; given the elective franchise 
in Ireland, 555-6 ; admission to the Irish 
Parliament refused, 558-9; "Catholic 
emancipation" in Ireland defeated, 558- 
9 ; emancipation in the United Kingdom, 
575, 589-90 ; relief measures in Ireland 
(1833), 594 ; disestablishment of the Irish 
church, 615-16. 

Cato Street conspiracy, the, 587. 

Cavalier Parliament, the, 451 _'. 

Cavaliers, origin of the name, 393 ; picture, 
403. 

Cawiipore (kaupoor') massacre at, 611 ; 
map, 526, Cb. 

Carton, William, 244. 

Cecil, Robert, Earl of Salisbury, 353, 360. 

Cecil, Sir William. See Burleigh. 

Celtic influence in northern England, 31. 

Celts in Britain and Europe, 4-7. 

Ceorls (kygrlz), 21. 

Cerdic, the conquests of, 17. 

Cervantes (servan'tez) Saavedra, Miguel 
de, 34;;. 

Ceylon (selon' or silon'), taken from Hol- 
land, 55."., 572 ; ,,„ij,, .726, Cd. 

Chalgrove Field, skirmish at, 404: nun,, 
104, Cc. 

Chamberlain (cham'berlin), Joseph. 621. 

Chancellor, origin of the office and title. 
91-2. 

Channel Islands, the, 136 ; map, 110, Cc. 

Chansons de Gestes (shanson' deh zhest), 
57, 95. 

Chantries, suppression of, 274, 290. 

Character, American, as affected by Eng- 
lish influences, v. 

Character, English national, as affected by 
geographical circumstances, 1. 



Charlemagne's (shar'le-man) empire, 52-3. 
Charles I. : visit, while prince, to Madrid, 
367 : early falsity, 367-8 ; accession, 
character, marriage (with portrait), 372- 
3 ; Buckingham's evil influence, 373-4 ; 
first quarrels with Parliament, 373-5 ; 
rupture with France, 375-6 ; forced loan, 
376; Petition of Right, 377-8; Laud's 
influence, 379-81 ; government without 
Parliament, 381-88 ; imprisonment of 
Eliot and others, 382-3 ; ship-money, 
385-6 ; measures in Scotland, and 
" Bishops' Wars," 386-9 ; meeting of 
the Long Parliament, 389 ; schemes in 
Ireland, 392; attempt against the five 
members, 393-4 ; approach of civil war, 
394-5 ; the first civil war, 403-13 ; nego- 
tiations with the Irish, 408, 413 ; surren- 
der to the Scots, 413-14 ; delivery to the 
English, 414-15 ; in the hands of the 
army, 415-18 ; scheming with all parties, 
414-17; second civil war, 417 ; trial and 
execution (with pictures), 418-19. 

Charles II., assumption of the royal title, 
425 : plans in Ireland, 425 ; agreement 
with the Scottish Covenanters, 425-6; 
invasion of England, defeat at Dunbar, 
escape to France, 427-8 ; called to the 
English throne, 440 ; character, — begin- 
ning of reign (with portrait), 448-452 ; a 
hireling of Louis XIV., 454-6; death, 
461. 

Charles II. of Spain, 478. 

Charles V., the emperor, 205, 248-52, 265- 
9, 295. 

Charles V. of France, 175. 

Charles VI, of France, 162, 216. 

Charles VI. Emperor, 480. 

Charles VII. of France, 216-20. 

Charles VIII. of France, his Italian expe- 
dition and its effects, 204. 

Charles XII. of Sweden, 479. 

Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, 204; pic- 
ture of his armor, 237. 

Charter of Forests, 151. 

Charter of Henry I., 89; laid before King 
John, 138. 

Charter, the Great, 137-41. 

Chartists, the. 59S-9, 607. 

Chatham (chSfanr) Lord. See Pitt. 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 184-5. 

Cherbourg (sher'bflrar). 176 ; map, 110, Cc. 

Chester, the Roman city, 10 ; map, 42, Be. 

Chimneys, 193. 

China: the Opium War, 598; war (1857) 
with England. 009-10 : war with Japan, 
569 ; map, end lining, Pd. 

Chinon (shenSn'), 117; mav, 110, Dd. 

Chivalry, 55. 

Church, ancient Celtic, picture of a, 29. 

Church, the Early and Mediaeval : intro- 
duction of Christianity by the Romans. 
11 ; extinction by the English conquest, 
19-20 ; restoration by missionaries from 
Rome and Ireland, 26-30 ; rise of the 
bishops (popes) of Rome to supremacy 
over the western Christian church, 52 ; 
origin of the English primacy at Canter- 



INDEX. 



653 



bury, 28 ; organization of the church in 
England under the rule of Rome. 33 ; 
treatment of the church by William the 
Conqueror, 75 ; robbery and corruption 
of the church by William Rufus, 83^4 ; 
Cistercian revival of the 12th century, 
and opening of the great age of church 
building, 1)5-6, 58; conflict of Henry II. 
with Archbishop Becket, — mischievous 
legal independence of the clergy, 1 1 1-14 ; 
great power of the popes in the loth cen- 
tury, 131 ; quarrel of King John with the 
church, — his submission and vassalage 
to the pope, 130-7 ; his support from the 
pope against his subjects, 141 ; papal 
exactions from England in the reign of 
Henry III., 143 ; decline of papal author- 
ity in the 14th century, — the "Baby- 
lonian Captivity " of the popes and the 
" Great Schism," 101 ; discontent with 
the state of the church in England, — the 
preaching of Wiclif and "The Vision of 
Piers Plowman," 176-8 ; the Lollards, 
181 ; religious revolts in Bohemia and at 
Florence, — end of the Great Schism, 
206 ; the friars in England, Franciscan 
and Dominican, 197-'.! : persecution of 
the Lollards, 209-10, 212-13 ; degeneracy 
of the English clergy in the 15th century, 
229; Protestant Reformation movements 
in Germany and elsewhere on the conti- 
nent, 248-53 ; Counter-Reformation in 
the Roman church, 251-2 ; separation of 
the English church from Rome by Henry 
VIII., 268-76; reunion with the Roman 
church, — restoration of papal authority 
by Mary, 296-9 ; final separation by Eliza- 
beth, 305-9. 
Church of England (Established) the sepa- 
ration of the church in England from the 
Roman church by Henry VIII., 268-76; 
the king as supreme head of the church. 
271, 273-6; reformation under Edward 
VI.. 288-90 ; composition and adoption of 
the English Prayer Book and the Articles 
of the English church, 290, 292 ; reunion 
of the church in England with the Roman 
church by Mary, 296-9 ; final separation 
by Elizabeth, 308 ; dissatisfaction with 
the creed, ritual, and constitution of the 
church, — rise of Puritans, Presbyterians. 
and Independents, 331-2 ; the oppressive 
clerical Court of High Commission, 332 ; 
King James I. as the head of the church, 
350-52 ; oppressive aims of the ruling 
clergy, 359 ; the rule of Laud in the 
church under Charles I., 379-81, 384 : the 
Puritans in control of Parliament, 380- 
82 ; arrest of Laud and abolition of the 
Court of High Commission, .".91 ; division 
of parties on church questions, 391-2, 
394-5 ; exclusion of bishops from the 
House of Lords, 395 ; alliance of Parlia- 
ment with the Scots, — .promised organi- 
zation of the English church on the 
Presbyterian system, — meeting of the 
Westminster Assembly, 407 ; growth of 
religious independency, — issue between 



Presbyterians and Independents, 409-11; 
414-17 ; execution of Laud, 411 ; triumph 
of the Independents, — execution of the 
king, — establishment of the Common- 
wealth, 418-20, 424 ; congregational or- 
ganization of the church under Crom- 
well's protectorate, 435 ; restoration of 
episcopacy witli the restored monarchy, 
448-50 ; persecution of Presbyterians and 
other Nonconformists, 450-51 ; Declara- 
tion of Indulgence by Charles I., 454-5 ; 
the Test Act of Parliament, 455 ; the 
Exclusion Bill, 457-8 ; conflict of James 
II. with the church, and its part in the 
Revolution of 1688, 464-7, 484-6; the 
Toleration Act and the Non-Jurors, 487- 
8 ; Jacobitism in the church, 500-501 ; 
the Methodist revival, 516 ; the question 
of Catholic emancipation and the atti- 
tude of George III., 558-9, 575; passage 
of the bill for Catholic emancipation, and 
partial repeal of the Test and Corpora- 
tion Acts, 589-90 ; abolition of the Test 
Oath in the universities, 616. 

Church of Ireland : disestablishment, 015- 
16. See, also, Catholics, and Ireland. 

Church of St. Lawrence, at Bradford-on- 
Avon (old English), picture of, 44. 

Christianity. See Church, Early and 
Mediaeval. 

Cid, song of the. 57. 

Cistercian (cTsterVTans) monasteries and 
monks (witli picture), 95-6. 

Citeaux (sito'), 95 ; map, 110, Ed. 

Cities. See Towns. 

Civil service reform, 609. 

Civil wars: Stephen and Matilda, 99-101 ; 
the Barons' War, 145-7 ; Wars of the 
Roses, 232-8 ; King and Parliament, 403- 
17. 

Clarence, George, Duke of, 236-9. 

Clarendon, Assize of. 119 ; map, 110 Cc. 

Clarendon, Constitutions of, 112. 

Clarendon, Earl of. See Hyde, Edward. 

Classic learning, revival of. 203. 

Claverhouse (klav'erus), John Graham of, 
Viscount Dundee, 461. 488-9. 

Clergy, the. independence of common law 
and courts, 75, 112. 

Clive, Robert, with portrait. 527. 

Clyde (River), map, 42, Ab. 

Cnut. See Canute. 

Coach, hackney, in the reign of Anne, pic- 
ture, 502. 

Coalition ministry, the. 54:;. 

Cobden, Richard,' 598-9, 61(1. 

Conir de Lion (kiirdell'on). See Richard 
I. 

Coffee-houses, 468, 498 ; picture, 499. 

Coinage, debasement of, 280, 291 ; restora- 
tion. 329. 

Coke, Sir Edward. 35, . 

Colchester, the Roman city, 9 ; ninp. 12, 
Dd. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 583. 

Colet, John, 279. 

Colonies, English : founding of the Ameri- 
can, 328-9, 34S, 357-8, 384-5, 451-2, 470; 



654 



INDEX. 



conquest of Jamaica, 437 : conquest of 
Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, etc., 471), 
501; conquest of Canada, — French and 
English colonial systems compared, 523- 
6, 532 ; American revolt and independ- 
ence, 534— 11, 543 ; acquisition of Aus- 
tralia and New Zealand, 537 ; conquest 
of Cape Colony and Ceylon, 555, 572 ; 
colonial aid to the Empire in South Afri- 
can war, 627 ; area and population. 031-5. 
See, also, India. 

Columbus, Christopher, 202, 205, 260. 

Cologne (kolon'), 154 : map, "'74, Ca. 

Commerce : mediaeval, 55-0, 92-3, 131-3, 
153-5, 173; in England under Lancas- 
trian kings, 229-30 ; under Henry VII., 
200 ; commercial revolution of 10th cen- 
tury, 253-4 ; in England under Eliza- 
beth, 329 ; under the Commonwealth, 
429-30 ; after the Restoration, 469-70 ; 
protective duties, 581-2, 588-9; attain- 
ment of commercial freedom, 599- 600. 

Common law, the English, fixed and uni- 
fied by Henry II., 118. 

Commons, the, and the House of Commons. 
See Parliament. 

Commonwealth, great seal of the (picture), 
432. 

Commonwealth of England, founding of 
the, 424. 

Commonwealth flag (picture), 420. 

Communists of Paris, the, 568. 

Concord, battle of, 539. 

Connrmatio Cartaruni (konferma'teo kiir- 
ta'room) of Edward I., 151-2. 

Confiscations, the Conqueror's, 64. 

Connaught (kon'nat), the kingdom of, 114- 
15 ; map, 110, A"b. 

Constantinople : mediaeval trade, 55 ; in the 
13th century, 131; defence against the 
Turks, 164; capture by the Turks, 203. 
See, also, Eastern Empire ; tun p. 574. El). 

Constitution of government, the English : 
its chief documents : the Charter of 
Henry I., 89 ; Magna Carta, 137-41 ; the 
Confirmatio Cartaruni of Edward I.„ 
151-2 ; the Petition of Right, 377-8 ; the 
Habeas Corpus Act, 400 ; the Declara- 
tion of Rights and the Bill of Rights, 
484-5 ; the Mutiny Act, 487 ; the Act of 
Settlement. 405; the First Reform Bill, 
591-4 ; the Second Reform Bill, 015 ; the 
Third Reform Bill. 618-19. 

Constitution of government, the English : 
its institutions. See Parliament, Mon- 
archy, Ministerial Government. 

Continental Congress, the American. 539. 

Continental System of Napoleon, the, 575- 
8. 

Conventicle Act, the, 450. 

Conversion of the English, 26-30. 

Cook, Captain, explorations of, 537. 

Copernican system of astronomy, 254, 342. 

Corneille (kornal') (Fr. pron. kornav'), 
Pierle, 343. 

Com Laws, the, 581-3; 588-9, 599-600. 

Cornwall, the British inhabitants of, 19 ; 
map, front lining, Fe. 



Corporation Act, 450, 589. 
Cortes (kor'tez), the Spanish, 133, 150. 
Cort's improvements in ironmaking, 540. 
Corunna (koroon'ya), battle of, 570 ; map, 

.",74, Bb. 
Costume of a gentleman in 1721 (picture), 

Cotters, cotarii, 72, 74. 

Cotton famine, the, 013-14. 

Counter- Reformation, the. 251-2. 

Country Party, the, 455-6. 

County, change of shire to, 74. 

County Councils, 620, 621. 

Courts of law, evolution of the English, 
92, 118-1: 1. 

Covenant, the first Scottish, 31 1 . 

Covenant, the Scottish National, 3S7-S. 

Covenant, the Solemn League and, 407, 
45(1. 

Covenanters, the Scottish: signers of the 
National Covenant, 387-8 ; Bishops' 
Wars, 38S-9 ; league with the English 
Parliament, 407; engagements with 
Charles I., and war with Parliament, 
415-17 ; adoption of the cause of Charles 
II., war with the English Common- 
wealth, and subjugation, 429 ; persecu- 
tion under Charles II.. 460-61. 

Cowper (kow'per orkob'per), William, 478. 

Cowton Moor, Battle of the Standard, 100 ; 
ma/,. 11(1, Cb. 

Craft gilds, 120, 23(1. 

Crannier, Thomas, services to Henry VIII., 
268-71 ; in the reign of Edward VI. (with 
portrait), 2SS-90 ; death at the stake. 299. 

Crecy (kreVsT), battle of, 170-1 ; ma/i, 110, 
Dc. 

Crimean (criiiie'aii) War, the, 500, 008-9 ; 
map, 574, Fb. 

Criminous clerks, 112. 

Crompton's invention, 540. 

Cromwell. Oliver, first speech in Parlia- 
ment, 381 ; his " Ironsides," and how 
he made them (with portrait), 405 ; ser- 
vice in the great civil war, 406-13; his 
religious independency, 410 ; his influ- 
ence in the remodelling of the army, 
410-11 ; made lieutenant-general, 412- 
13 ; intermediation between Parliament 
and army, 415-17 ; in the second civil 
war, 417; at the trial of the king, 418; 
campaign in Ireland, 425; campaign in 
Scotland, and victory at Worcester, 425- 
8 : Cromwellian settlement of Ireland, 
429; dissolution of the Rump, 431-3; 
captain-general and commander-in- 
chief, 433 ; Lord Protector of the Com- 
monwealth, 434-8 ; foreign wars. 437-S ; 
death, 438 ; the gibbeting of his remains, 
448. 

Cromwell, Richard, protectorate of, 438-9. 

Cromwell Thomas (with portrait), 270, 

Cromwellian settlement of Ireland, 429. 
Crossbowman, picture of, 170. 
Crusades, the, 55, 85, 109, 117, 121-:;, 133. 
Culloden (cullo'den), battle of, 521 ; maji, 
313. 



INDEX. 



655 



Cumberland, the Duke of, 521. 
Cumbria, 19; map (Strathclyde), 19. 
Curfew (from couvre-feu), IS. 
Curia Regis (koo'rea ra'ges). See King's 

Court. 
Currency. See Coinage. 
Customs duties, regulation by Edward I., 

and origin of the name, 155. 
Cuthbert, St., ill. 
Cymry (kim'ri), the, 4. 
Cynewulf (kin'ewulf) the poet, 31-2. 
Cynrie (kin'ric), the conquests of, 17. 

Danegeld, the, and its effects, 09. 

Danelaw, the, 41 ; map, 42, Cc. 

Danes : attacks and invasions of, 37-40 ; 
effects, 43 ; in Ireland, 11 1. 

Dante (dan'te), 134, 104. 

Danube River, 11 ; map, 574, Eb. 

Darlington, first railway, 590 ; map, 404, 
Ca. 

Darwin, Charles, 628. 

Dauphin of France, 215. 

David II. (David Bruce) of Scotland, 108, 
171, 175, 209. 

Declaration of Rights, the, 484 -5. 

Defender of the Faith, 207. 

Dee River, 10 ; map, 42, Be. 

Defoe, Daniel, 498. 

Deira (del'ra), the kingdom of, 18, 27 ; 
urn/), 42, Cb. 

Delhi (del'le) in the mutiny, 011 ; map, 
520, Bb. 

Demesne (de-men'), the, 70. 

Democracy, primitive, among the early 
English, 21-3 ; its decline, 23-0, 43, 09- 
70. 

Democratic ideas in the 14th century, ISO ; 
democratic discontent in the 19th, 581 ; 
democratic reformation of Parliament, 
591-4, 615, 018-19. 

Denmark, the old English home in (with 
map), 15-10 ; map, 10, Ec. 

Derby, 521 ; map, 404, Cb. 

Derry. See Londonderry. 

De'Ruyter (dehri'ter), Dutch admiral, 431. 

Descartes (dakarf), Rene, 342. 

Despensers (despSn'sers), the, 100-7. 

Des Roches (darosh'), Peter, justiciar, 138. 

Dettingen(det'tTngen), battle of, 521 ; map, 
574, Ca. 

Devonshire (dev'onshire), the British in- 
habitants of, 19; map, front lining, Ge. 

Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, 622. 

Dickens, Charles (with portrait), 626, 628. 

Dispensing power, claims of James II., to 
the, 404. 

Disraeli (dtzra'le or dizre'le), Benjamin : 
beginning of public career, 007-S ; first 
Derby-Disraeli Ministry, 011-12 ; second 
Derby-Disraeli Ministry and Second Re- 
form Bill, 015 ; made Prime Minister 
and Earl of Beaconsfield, — "imperial 
policy " (with portrait), 616-17 ; death, 
019. 

Dissenters. See Nonconformists. 

Divine right, doctrine of kingship by, 349, 
359, 372. 



Dixon, Canon, quoted, 274-5. 

Dniester (nes'ter) River, 11 ; map, 574, Eb. 

Domesday Book, with facsimile of entries, 

72-4. 
Dominicans, 198. 
Dominion of Canada, the, 015 ; map, end 

lining. 
Douay (doba'), Jesuits at, 320 ; map, 574, 

Ca. 
Dover, treaty of, 454 ; iiiiiji, 404, Dc. 
Drake, Sir Francis, 324-8, 
Drogheda (dro'heda), Cromwell's storming 

and massacre at, 425 ; map, 358, Cb. 
Druids, the, 0-7. 
Drumclog (drum-klog'), battle of, 401 ; 

map, 313. 
Dryden, John, 343, 408. 
Dublin, 425; map, 358, Cb. 
Dudley, Sir Edmund (agent of Henry 

VII.), 262. 
Dudley, Guildford, 294, 297. 
Du Guesclin (dugaklan'), Bertram!, 175. 
Dunbar (dunbiir'), battles of (in 1290), 

152 ; (in 1051). 427 : map, 110, Cb. 
Dundee (dundee') taken by Montrose, 412 ; 

map, 313. 
Dundee, John Graham of Claverhouse, 

Viscount, 401, 488-9. 
Dungeness (dnnjgneV), naval battle off, 

431 ; map, 404, Dc. 
Dunkirk, English acquisition of, 437 ; sale 

by Charles II., to France, 451 ; map, 574, 

Ca. 
Dunstan, 43. 
Duquesue, Fort, 526. 
Durham (dfir'fim) cathedral, view of, 96 ; 

map, 404, Ca. 
Dutch, the. See Netherlands and Holland ; 

map, 31 S. 
Dutch in South Africa, 022-7. 
Dwellings, Anglo, Saxon, 43 ; later rnedhe- 

val, 191-4. 

Ealdhelm, or Aldhehn, 32, 44. 

Ealdormen, 22. 

Earldoms, changed character of, 74. 

East Anglia. the kingdom of, 18, 28-9, 33 
map, 42, Dc. 

East India Company : first charter, 329 
conquests in the 18th century, 520-7 
542-3 ; reorganization of its government 
545 ; commercial monopoly withdrawn 
595. 

Eastern Association, Cromwell and the, 
400. 

Eastern Empire, the, 11, 52, 54, 134. 

East Saxon kingdom, the, 17-18, 28. 

Ebbsfleet, 17 ; map, 42, Dd. 

Edgar, King, 43, 46. 

Edgar the Atheling, 63, 67. 

Edgehill, battle of, 404; map, 404, Cb. 

Edict of Nantes (nants), 253 ; its revoca- 
tion. .".40 : map, 574, Bb. 

Edinburgh (ed'Tnburro) : its cession to the 
Scots, 45 : burning by the English (Henry 
VIII.), 278; riot in St. Giles's Church, 
■ is, : submission to Montrose, 412; sub- 
mission to Cromwell, 427 ; map, 42, Bb. 



656 



INDEX. 



Edith (renamed Matilda), Queeh of Henry 
I., 89, 97. to em " 

Edraer, 94. < -- ••' 

Edmund, called Ironside^ 46. 

Education, popular, first national appro- 
priation for, 595 ; first teachers' training 
schools, 607 -8 ; national system of com- 
mon schools founded, lilt!; elementary 
schools made free, (120. See, also, Learn- 
ing. 

Edward I., as prince, 144-8 ; his reign, 
148-56 ; his character, 148 ; his portrait, 
147; his seal, 14!) ; his " Model Parlia- 
ment,'' 148-50; his Confirmalio Car- 
tarum, 151-2; his subjugation of Wales, 
152 ; his wars with the Scots, 152-3 ; his 
death, 153. 

Edward H\, 165-7. 

Edward III., his reign, 167-78 ; his war 
with the Scots, 168, 171 ; his claim to the 
French crown, 160 ; his wars in France, 
168-75 ; his relations with Parliament, 
173 ; lus introduction of Flemish weavers, 
173 ; his last years, 176-8 ; his portrait in 
an old picture, 168 ; his descendants, 227. 

Edward IV. (with portrait), 234-9. 

Edward V. (so called), the murdered 
prince (with portrait), 239-41. 

Edward VI., and his council (picture), 287 ; 
his reign, 287-04. 

Edward the Confessor, 46-8. 

Edward the Elder, 42-3. 

Edwin, King of Northumbria, 28-9. 

Egbert, King, union of English kingdoms 
under, 33, 38. 

Egypt, Napoleon in, 557-8; expulsion of 
the French by the English, 572 ; map. 

, end lining, Ld. 

Eighteenth century, survey of general his- 
tory, 477. 

Eilean-na-Naoimh, 20. 

Eleanor (gl'ean&r) of Aquitaine (with pic- 
ture from her effigy), 101, 111, 116. 

Elbe (elbe) River, 576 ; map, 574, Da. 

Elective franchise. See Parliament. 

Elector, the Great, 344. 

Electricity, the Age of, 507, 628. 

Eliot, George. 628. 

Eliot, Sir John, resistance to the king, 3,4. 
376, 381-2 ; imprisonment and death, 
(with portrait), 382-:!. 

Elizabeth, Queen, birth, 271,270; impris- 
onment by. Mary, 207 ; accession, charac- 
ter, portrait, 305-7 ; new reformation of 
the church. 306-9 ; conduct towards 
Mary Stuart, 309-22 ; foreign affairs in 
her reign, 317-19, 322-8 : carried in state 
(picture), 323 ; Elizabethan literature. 
330-1 ; religious oppression and persecu- 
tion, 319-21, 331-2 ; affairs in Ireland, 
333-1 ; death, 334. 

Elizabeth Farnese, 470-80. 

Elizabeth (of Bohemia), daughter of James 
I., 362, 363. 364. 

Elizabeth Woodville, queen of Edward IV.. 
236, 230-40. 

Ely, Isle of, 60 ; map, 42, Dc. 

Embargo Act, the American, 57S. 



Emperor-kings of Germany, 53, 131-2, 163, 
205. 

Empire, mediaeval revival of the Roman in 
name, 52, 53 : called the Holy Roman Em- 
pire, 131 ; under the Hapsburgs (House 
of Austria), 132, 163, 205 ; under Charles 
V., 248-252. 

Empire, the Eastern or Byzantine. See 
Eastern Empire. 

Empson and Dudley, 262. 

England, the name, 18. 

Engles, the old home of the (with map), 
15-16 ; conquests and settlements in Brit- 
ain, 18-19. 

English conquest of Britain, 15-20 ; bar- 
barity of the conquerors, 19-21. 

English language. See Language, English. 

English Pale, 115, 261, 3:;:; ; map, 358, Cb. 

Enniskilleuers, victory of, 491 ; map, 358, 
Ca. 

Boris, 22. 

Eormine Street. 11 ; map, 8. 

Episcopacy, abolition demanded, 391. 

Essex, origin of the name of, 18; map, 42, 
Dd. 

Essex, Robert Devereux, second Earl of, 
333-4. 

Essex, Robert Devereux, third Earl of, com- 
mand of parliamentary forces, 403-4, 
406-7,409,411. 

Ethandun (et'handun), battle of, 41 : map, 
42, Bd. 

Ethelbert (Sth'elbert), King of Kent, 28. 

Ethel ings. 24. 

Ethelwulf and his sons, 38. 

Eugene, of Savoy, Prince. 479. 

Evesham (evz'iim or evz'hum), battle of, 
174; map, lid. Cb. 

Exchequer, origin of the court and the 
name (with picture). 90-91. 

Exeter, the Roman city, 9 ; map, 42, Bd. 

Exeter Book, the, 32. 

Exclusion Bill, the, 457-8. 

Eyre (ar), Governor, 014. 

Factory laws, the first. 595. 

Factory system, the, 547, 581. 

Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 406, 408, 411, 413, 

417.418. 440. 
Fairs, mediaeval, 93. 
Falkirk (fal'kerk). battles of (of 120s). 15:;, 

(of 1745), 521 ; map, 1 10, Ca. 
Falkland (fak'land). Lucius Cary, Lord, 

302, 407. 
Family Compact, the Bourbon, 480. 
Faroe Islands, .'!7 : ump, :;s. 
Farthingale, the wheel (picture), 351. 
Favorites of Edward II., 164-6; of James 

I., 357, 360; of Queen Anne, 499-500. 
Fawkes, Guy, 355. 
Ferdinand, of Aragon, 205, 248, 265. 
Ferrybridge, battle of. 234 ; map, 110, Cb. 
Feudal system, the, 53 ; in England, 67-8. 

102, 111, 120, 131,228.255. 
Fiefs, 53. 

Field of the Cloth of Gold, the, 267. 
Fifteenth century, general survey of, 202- 

6. 



INDEX. 



657 



Fifth Monarchy Men, 431. 

Fight at Finnesburg, the song of the, 30. 

Fisher, Bishop John, 273. 

Fitz Peter, Geoffrey, justiciar, 137-8. 

Five members, attempt of Charles I., 
against, 301. 

Five-mile Act, the, 150-51. 

Flags, English, Scottish, and Union, pic- 
ture, 501 ; the Union Jack and the Irish 
flag, pictures, 558. 

Flambard, Ranulf, 83. 

Flanders : a fief of the French crown, 54 ; 
mediaeval industries, 50 ; emigrations to 
England, 03, 173, 329 ; in the 14th cen- 
tury, 102-3 ; revolt under Jacques Van 
Artevelde, 169 ; absorbed in the Bur- 
gundian dominion, 204-5 ; in that of 
Spain, 248-9 ; revolt suppressed, 347 ; 
transferred to Austria, 47 ; map, 110, 
Dc. 

Flemish, — Flemings. See Flanders. 

Flodden Field, battle of, 204 ; map, 4(14, Ba. 

Florence, 131, 134, 104, 203, 200; map, 
574, Db. 

Florence of Worcester, 94. 

Florida, transferred from Spain to England, 
532. 

Flushing, 325 ; map, 574, Ca. 

Folk-moot, the, 23. 

Fontenoy (fontena'), battle of, 521 ; map, 
574, Ca. 

Food in mediaeval tijnes, 194-5. 

Fortescue (f6r'tesku), Sir John, on mon- 
archy, 244. 

Forth (River), 18 ; map, 42, Ba. 

Fosse (fos) Way, the, 11 ; map, 8. 

Fotheringay Castle, 322 : map, 404, Cb. 

Fountains Abbey, 90. 

Fourteenth century, general survey of, 
161-4. 

Fox, Charles James, 543-1, 553 (with por- 
trait), 574-5. 

Foyle (River), 491 ; map, 358, Ca. 

France : anciently, as Gaul, 4-7 ; Norman 
settlement in. 47 ; origins - of the king- 
dom, — its feudal system, 52-3, 51 ; 
French dominion of English kings, 109 ; 
fiefs forfeited by John, 1:55-0 ; the king- 
dom in the 13th century, 133 ; in the 14th 
century, — the Hundred Years' War, 102, 
1 0.X-75 ; map at treaty of Bretigny, 174 ; 
partial conquest by Henry V., 213-10; 
Joan of Arc's deliverance, 217-20 ; map 
of territory held by the English in 1429, 
218; expulsion of the. English, 220-21; 
national solidification, 204 ; in the 10th 
century, — religious wars, 250. 252-3 ; 
wars of Louis XII. and Francis I., 251), 
263-8; quarrel and war with England 
under Charles I., 373, 375-7, 379, 385 ; 
absolutism established under Richelieu, 
Mazarin, and Louis XIV.. 344-0, 478-9; 
wars of the 18th century, 478-81, 496, 
501-2, 511, 515-10, 520-28, 532 ; the king- 
dom under Louis XV. and XVI., 480-82*; 
alliance with the U. S., 540-11 ; the Revo- 
lution, 483 ; wars of the Revolution with 
England, 554-8 ; Napoleonic wars, 562-4, 



571-80 • 'sto-ation of the Bourbons, 504 ; 

revolutic 1830 and 1848, and the 

Second E . r (,5-7 ; Franco-Prussian 

War and 1 nublic, 507 8 ; maps, 

110, 574, Cb. 
Francis a. of France, 265-8. 

Francis II. of France, o,0. 
Franciscans. 150, 198-9. 
Franco-Prussian (frank'opriish'an) War, 

507. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 534. 
Franks, the, 11, 52, 109. 
Frederick the Great, 480-82. 
Free cities, Italian and German, 54, 56, 

131, 163. 
Free companies, 163. 
Free trade, the English adoption of. 600. 
Freedom of the press, 590. 
Freeman, Edward A., on Alfred the Great, 

42. 
Freemen, early English, 21-0,43, 69-70. 
Friars, mediaeval, 197-9. 
Frisian industries, 56. 
Frisians, 15-10; aia/i, 10. 
Frith gilds, 120. 

Froissart (frois'iirt). Chronicles of, 170. 
Fronde, wars of the, 345. 
Froude (frood), James A., quoted, 275, 289. 
Fulford, 01 ; map, 110, Cb. 
Fuller, Thomas, 442. 
Furniture, mediaeval, 193. 
Fyrd (ferd), the, 23, 68, 120. 

Gael (gal), descendants of the, 4. 

Gainsborough, battle of, 406 ; majj, 404, Cb. 

Galileo (gallle'o), 342. 

Games, mediaeval, 199. 

Gardiner, Bishop, 296, 300. 

Gardiner, Samuel Rawson, quoted, 351, 427. 

Garibaldi (gSrTbal'di), 566. 

Garter, the order of the, 171. 

Gaskell, Mrs. Elizabeth, 628. 

Gaul, inhabitants of, 4. 

Gaunt (gant), John of, 178 ; portrait, 176. 

Gaveston, Piers, 105-6. 

Gay, John, 498. 

Gemot ( gemot'), the, 22. 

JUenealogy : of West Saxon kings, 51 ; of 

/ Norman kings, Conqueror to Stephen, 
I 108 ; of the Angevin, or early Planta- 
I genet kings, 130 ; of the later Plantagenet 
kings, 201 ; of the royal Houses of Lan- 
caster, York, and Tudor, 227 ; of Henry 
VII. from John of .Gaunt, 247 ; of the 
Tudor family, 304 ; of feh^Stuart sover- 
eigns of Scotland to Mary Stuart, 341 ;* 
of the Stuart sovereigns of Scotland Tflid 
England, 476 ; of the Hanoverian sover- 
eigns, 606. 

Geneva (jene'va), tribunal of arbitration, 
616 ; map, 574, Cb. 

Genoa (geu'oa), 131 ; map, 574, Cb. 

Geoffrey (jgf'fri), of Anjou (called Planta- 
genet), 07. 100-101. 

Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the legends of 
King Arthur, 95, 102, 121. 

Geographical circumstances affecting Eng- 
lish character, 1. 



658 



INDEX. 



Geographical discovery in the 15th century, 

effects of, 202-3. 
George I., claims to the English crown, 

495, 502-3 ; accession. — character, with 

portrait, — reign. 5011-14. 
George II., reigu. 514-16, 520-28. 
George III. : accession. 528 : character and 

aims, with portrait, 531-2 ; his personal 

government, 532-40 ; his failure, 541 ; 

mental derangement, 545 ; continued 

insanity, — regency of the Prince of 

Wales, 579 ; death, 583. 
George IV. : regency as Prince of Wales, 

579-83 ; accession as king, 583 ; reign, 

587-90. 
Gerefa (ggra'fa), the, 23. 
Germanic conquest of Britain, 15-20. 
Germanic- invasion of the Roman Empire, 

11. 
Germanic race in Europe, 4. 
Germany : the early kingdom. 52-3, 54 ; 

early literature, 57 ; the emperor-kings, 

53, 131-2, 163, 104: mediaeval free cities, 

54, 132, 154, 103, 254 ; hi the 13th cen- 
tury. 132 ; in the 14th century, 103 ; in 
the 15th century. 202, 205 ; the Reforma- 
tion, 249-51 ; the Thirty Years' War, 043- 
4, 363-4 ; literary awakening, 478 ; wars 
of the 18th century, 478-81 ; in the Napo- 
leonic wars, 562-4 ; the Holy Alliance, 
5G4 ; Revolution of 1848, 505; Austro- 
Prussiau and Franco-Prussian wars, — 
unification and creation of the German 
Empire, 507-8. 

Gesiths (ge-seth'), -L 

Ghent (gent), treaty of, 580-81 ; map, 574, 
Ca. 

Ghibellines (gll/ellin), 54. 103. 

Gibbon. Edward, 584. 

Gibraltar (jibral'tar). acquired from Spain, 
470. 501; map, 574, Be. 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 328. 

Gildas. the history of, 15. 

Gilds. 125. 200. 251. 

Gladstone, William E. : follower and suc- 
cessor of Peel, 007 -8 : chancellor of the 
exchequer, — budget of 18G0, 612; first 
ministry, 015-10 ; second, third, and 
fourth ministries, — Third Reform Bill, 
— Irish Home Rule Bills, — resignation 
and retirement (with portrait), 017-21. 

Glanvil, Ranulf. 120. 

Glasgow (glas'go), 412 ; map, 313. 

(Jlass in the Middle Ages, 45, 100-4. 

Glatz (glatz), 4si ; map, 574, Da. 

Glencoe massacre of, 480 ; mnji, 313. 

Glendower, Owen, 208. 

Gloucester (glos'ter) Humphrey, Duke of 
(with portrait). 217-22. 

Gloucester, the Roman city, 9; map, 42, 
Bd. 

Gneist, R. von. on Magna Carta, 141. 

Godwin, Earl. 40-7. 

Goethe (ge'teh), 47s. 

Goidel (go'Tdel). the. 4. 

Goldsmith, Oliver. 583. 

Gondomar, 364-5. 

Good Parliament, the. 17S. 



Gordon, General Charles G., 619. 

Gothic architecture, development of, 57-8, 
134. 

Goths, 11, 52. 

Gower, John, the poet. 185. 

Grafton, the Duke of, 537. 

Grand Pensionary of Holland. 047. 

Grand Remonstrance, the. 392-3. 

Gravesend, 452 ; map, 404, Dc. 

Gray, Thomas, 583. 

Great Britain, physical geography of the 
island, 1-2 (with map) ; formation of the 
kingdom, 500. See, also, Britain. 

'• Great Commoner, the," 537. 

Great Schism (sis'm), the. 101, 206. 

Greece: war of independence, 1821, 565; 
map, 574, Ec. 

Gregory, St., and the English captives at 
Rome, 27. 

Grenville, George, 532-6. 

Grey, Earl, and the First Reform Bill, 
501-0. 

Grey, Lady Jane (with portrait), 293-7. 

Grey Friars. See Franciscans. 

Greyfriars Churchyard, signing the Cove- 
nant in, 388. 

Grosseteste (gros'tSstO. Bishop, 198. 

Guelfs (guelfs) and Ghibellines, 53, 163. 

Gunpowder, invention of, 164. 

Gunpowder Plot, the (with picture), 354-5. 

Gustavus Adolphus, 344. 

Guy Fawkes's Day, 355. 

Habeas Corpus (ha'beas c&r'piis) Act, the, 
400. 

Hampden, John, leadership in Parliament, 
374; resistance to forced loan, 376 ; re- 
fusal of ship-money, 380 ; in the Long 
Parliament (with portrait), 391-4; death, 
404-5. 

Hampton Court Conference, 350-1 ; map, 
404, Cc. 

Hangings (wall draperies), mediaeval, 193. 

Hanover, the old English home in (with 
map), 15-10 ; succession of Hanoverian 
princes to the English crown. 495, 502; 
their lineage, 600 ; separation of English 
and Hanoverian crowns, 500 ; Hanover 
absorbed by Prussia. 507 : map, 574. Ca. 

Hanse of Cologne in London, the. 50. 

Hanse Towns, or Hanseatic League. 132; 
their " Steelyard " in London, 154 ; their 
power in the 14th century, 103 ; aid to 
Edward IV., 237 ; decline, 254. 

Hapsburgs (House of Austria), the, 132, 
163, 205. 

Harfleur (artier'), siege by Henry V., 213; 
map, llo, Dc. 

Hargreave's (har'greave) invention, 540. 

Harley, Robert. Earl of Oxford. 501. 

Harold, the last of the Saxon kings, 47-8 : 
his defeat and death, 61-3. 

Harold Hardrada's invasion. 61-2. 

Hastings (hast'ings). or Senlac, battle of, 
02-3: map, 42, Dd. 

Hastings, Lord, execution of, 239—10. 

Hastings, Warren. 542-3. 

Havelock (hav'ehlok). Henry, 611. 



INDEX. 



659 



Hawkins, Sir Jolm, 324, 520. 

Hebrides Islands, 37 ; map, 38. 

Hedgeley Moor, battle of, 235; maji, 110, 
Cb. 

Helmet, cylindrical, 12th century (picture), 
122. 

Hengist and Horsa, conquests of, 17. 

Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I., 373, 
375, 403. 

Hertford County, 400 ; map, front lining, 
He. 

Henry I. (called Beauclerk) : his father's 
injunction, 77 ; his accession, SS ; contest 
with Robert, and acquisition of Nor- 
mandy, 88-9 ; character, 89 ; charter, 
89 ; reign, 90-8 ; organization of public 
business, 90-2 ; schemes for the succes- 
sion, 97 ; picture of his effigy, P8 : drown- 
ing of his son, 97. 

Henry II. : accession in Normandy, Maine, 
and Anjou, acquisition of Aquitaine, and 
accession in England, 101 : dominion in 
France, 109; restoration of order, 110- 
11; conflict with Becket, 111-114; par- 
tial conquest of Ireland, 114-15; trou- 
ble with wife and sons (with picture from 
his effigy), 110-17 ; legal reforms, 118- 
120. 

Henry III., reign, 142-8; character, 143; 
portrait, 143; conflict with the barons, 
143-S; death, lis. 

Henry IV. (of Lancaster), banishment and 
return to take the crown, 183 ; parlia- 
mentary title, '_'07 ; constitutional reign, 
207, 210-11 ; persecution of Lollards. -OH- 
IO ; relations with his son, " Prince Hal," 
211 ; portrait. 208. 

Henry IV. (of Navarre), 253, 344-5. 

Henry V. : as Prince of Wales, 211 ; char- 
acter (with portrait), 212 ; partial con- 
quest of France, 213-10 ; death, 216. 

Henry VI. : infanc-y and minority, 210-20 ; 
marriage to Margaret of Anjou, 221 ; 
weakness and losses of mind, 231-2 ; two 
discrownings, and death, 232-8 ; portrait, 
231. 

Henry VII., lineage. 241 : acquisition of 
the crown, 241-2 ; character and reign 
(with portrait), 250-02; treatment of 
"pretenders," 257-'.) : foreign and com- 
mercial policy, 259-61 ; dealing with Ire- 
land, 261-2 ; extortions, 262. 

Henry VIII. . character. 262-3; portrait, 
263 : foreign undertakings, 263-8 ; em- 
ployment of Wolsey, 264-9 ; tract against 
Luther, 207 ; divorce of Katharine of 
Aragon, 209-71 ; separation of the Church 
of England from Rome, 271-6 ; later 
marriages, 271, 273, 276-7, 270 : suppres- 
sion of the monasteries, 273-5; death, 
278-9. 

Henry Beauclerk. See Henry I. 
Henry of Huntingdon, 94. 

Henry. Prince (son of .James I.), 360. 
Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, 442. 
Hereward, 66. 
Herleva, 59. 

Herrick, Robert, 442. 



Herzegovinia (hertsegove'na), 508 ; map, 
574, Db. 

Hexham, battle of, 235 : map, 110, Cb. 

High Commission, Court of, 332, 357 ; use 
of by Charles I., 383-4 ; abolition by 
Long Parliament, 301 ; revival by James 
II., 404. 

Highlanders, roused for King Charles I. by 
Montrose, 41".. 

Hill, Rowland, 598. 

Hlaford (lord), 23. 

Hoard, the royal, 88. 

Hobbes, Thomas, 3:50, 342, 442. 

Hohenzollern (hoentsol'lern) family, 344. 

Holland. See Netherlands. 

Holmby House, 415. 

Holy Alliance, the, 564-5. 

Holy Roman Empire. See Empire, medi- 
aeval revival. 

Home Rule party, the Irish, 018-21. 

Homildon Hill, battle of, 208; map, 110, 
Cb. 

Honfleur (onfler'), 97 ; map, 110, Dc. 

Hooker, Richard (with portrait), 330. 

Host, the (sacramental), 100. 

Hotspur, Henry Percy s called, 208, 

House-carls, 02. 

Household suffrage, 615. 

Houses of Parliament, the, picture, 613. 

Howard, Katharine, 277. 

Hubertsburg, treaty of, 481. 

Huguenot refugees in England, 469. 

Huguenots, the. 252-5, 545. 577, 378-9. 

Humber River, 18 ; map, 42, Cc. 

Humble Petition and Advice, the, 436. 

Hundred, the, 22. 

Hundred-moats, 22, 68, 83, 92. 

Hundred Years' War in France, begun by 
Edward III., 102, 108-70; renewed by 
Henry V., 213-10; ended under Henry 
VI., 217-21. 

Hungary : wars with the Turks, 104, 200 ; 
crown acquired by the Austrian house, 
517 : unsuccessful revolt (1848), 505 ; for- 
mation of Austro- Hungarian Empire, 508 ; 
map, 574, Db. 

Huntingdon County, 400 ; map, front lin- 
ing, Hd. 

Hus (Ms), John, 200. 

Huskisson (hiis'kTsson), William, 587-90. 

Huxley, Thomas H.. 628. 

Hy, or Iona, the monastery of, 29 ; mini 
110, Ba. 

Hyde, Edward, leadership among moderate 
men in the Long Parliament, 502 ; made 
Earl of Clarendon and lord chancellor 
at the Restoration, 419; impeachment 
and flight, — history of the Civil War, 
452-:;. 

Hyder Ali, 542. 

Icknield Street. 10; map, 8. 

Iceland, 37 ; map, 38. 

Impeachment: first exercise of the power, 

178; revival of, 3G5-6. 
" Imperial policy," 616-17. 
Inclosure of commons and opeu fields, 280, 

201. 



66o 



INDEX. 



Independence, the American Declaration i 
of, 539. 

Independents : of the Elizabethan age, 
331-2 ; migration to New England, 366; 
of the great civil war, 409-10, 414-1(1. 

India : Mongol conquest, 253, 348 ; discov- 
ery of the ocean route for European 
trade, 202, 253-4 ; English conquests in 
the 18th century, 520-7, 542-3; Pitt's 
India Bill, 545; Sepoy mutiny, 610-11; 
government vested in the crown, 611 ; 
Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of 
India, 617 ; map, 520. 

Indulgence : Declaration of, by Charles II., 
454-5 ; declaration of, by James II., 
465-6. 

Infanta, the Spanish, 350. 

Inkerman (Inkerman'), battle of, 001) ; 
map, 574, Fb. 

Inquest, the Norman procedure of, 119. 

Inquisition, the. '-'til'.. 

Instrument of government, the, 434-0. 

Interdict, England under, 137. 

Iona (eo'na), the monastery of. 29 ; map. 
110, Ba. 

Ireland : origin of the Celtic inhabitants, 
4 ; never reached by the Roman arms, 
8; original home of the Scots, 11-12; 
conversion to Christianity by St. Patrick, 
2G-7 ; Irish missionaries in England and 
their influence, 29-31 ; incursions of the 
vikings or Danes, 37-38 ; Danish settle- 
ments, 114; beginning of English con- 
quest by Strongbow and Henry II., 115; 
Irish measures of Henry VII., —the 
Poynings Laws, 201-2 ; further conquest 
by Henry VIII., and his assumption of 
the title of King of Ireland, 277 ; treat- 
ment under Queen Elizabeth, 333 ; com- 
pleted subjugation, — treatment under 
James I., — the Plantation of Ulster 
(with map), 358-0 ; under Sir Thomas 
Wentworth, 385; insurrection of 1641, 
392 ; negotiations of Charles I. with the 
Irish Catholics, 408, 413 ; negotiations of 
Charles II. with the Irish, — Cromwell's 
campaign in Ireland, 425 ; the Cromwel- 
lian Settlement, 420 ; representation in 
the Barebones Parliament, 433 ; decree 
of union with England under Cromwell. 
435; Ireland under James II., 480 ; Irish 
rising for James, against William of 
Orange, and the Orange conquest of the 
island, 400-01 : subsequent oppressions, 
401-2; relief measures of 1780-82, — in- 
dependence of the Irish Parliament. 54'J ; 
movement of the United Irishmen, — at- 
tempted invasion from France, — civil 
war between Orangemen and Catholics, 
555-0 ; parliamentary union with Eng- 
land, 558-0 ; Daniel O'Connell and Cath- 
olic emancipation, 580-00 ; further relief 
to Catholics. 504: the great famine,— 
agitation for repeal of the union, 600- 
001; the "Young Ireland" party,— 
opening of the "land question." 601 : 
rebellion of 1848, 007 ; the Feniau move- 
ment, 614-15 ; disestablishment of the 



Irish church and amendment of land 
laws, 015-10 ; rise of the Land League 
and the Home Rule party, 017-18 ; de- 
feat of 51 r. Gladstone's Home Rule bills, 
619-21 ; passage of a new Land Act 
(18%), and a Local Self-Government Act 
(1808), 021 ; map, 358. 

Ireton (ire/ton), Henry, his Heads of Pro- 
posals, 410. 

Iron-making, improvements in, 546. 

Ironsides, Cromwell's, 405, 411. 

Isabella of Castile, 205, 248. 

Isabella, queen of Edward II., 105-7, 100. 

Italy : the Gothic and Lombard kingdoms, 
— rise of the popes at Rome, — the re- 
vived Roman empire, 52-3 ; free cities, 
54, 131, 103 ; mediaeval commerce, 50 ; in 
the 13th century. 134; in the 14th cen- 
tury, — Guelfs and Ghibellines, — open- 
ing of the Italian Renaissance, 103-4 ; in 
the 15th century. — flourishing of art, — 
loss of liberty, — invasion of Charles 
VIII., 203-4 ; ' in the 10th century, — 
Spanish subjugation, 250; in the 17th 
century, Spanish and Austrian blight, 
347 ; in the wars of the 18th century, 
478-81 ; campaigns of Napoleon. 483 : 
under Napoleon, 502-3 ; under the Holy 
Alliance, 504; revolutions of 1820, 1830, 
ami 1848,565; unification and formation 
of the kingdom of Italy, 500 ; map, 574, 
Db. 

Jacobin clubs, 483. 

Jacobite rebellion of 1715,510; of 1745,521. 

Jacobites, the, 480-7. 

Jamaica : English conquest, 137 ; insurrec- 
tion of blacks, 014 ; map, end lining, Ge. 

James I. of England aud VI. of Scotland : 
birth, 315; coronation in Scotland, 310; 
accession in England, 340; character (with 
portrait), 340-50 ; dealings with Puritans 
and Catholics. 350-55 ; conflicts with Par- 
liament. 352-65; favorites, 357, 300-01; 
dealings with Spain, 350, 301-2, 307 : 
death, 308. 

James I. of Scotland, captivity in England, 
209. 

James II. of England, as Duke of York, 
453, 455, 458, 401 ; attempt to exclude 
from throne, 457-8 ; accession, — charac- 
ter (with portrait), 401-2 ; reign, — con- 
flict with Parliament aud church, — loss 
of the crown, 402-7 ; attempts and fail- 
ure in Ireland, 400-01. 

James IV. of Scotland, 200. 204. 

James V. of Scotland. 204, 278. 

Jameson raid, the, 020. 

Japan : war with China, 500 ; map, end lin- 
ing. Rd. 

Jeanne d'Arc (zhan dark'). See Joan of 

Air. 

Jeffreys, Judge George. 463. 

Jenkins's Ear, War of. 480. 515-10. 

Jerusalem, 85 ; ump. ."74. Fc. 

Jesuits (jez'ultz) : founding of the order, 
251-'-' ; mission and sufferings in Eng- 
land, 310-21. 



INDEX. 



66 1 



Jews, mediaeval treatment ; massacre of 
1190 in England, 126. 

"Jingoism," 010-17. 

Joan of Arc, 217-20. 

Johannesburg, 625-6 : ///(//(, 625. 

John, King: in Ireland. Ill; rebellion 
against his father, 117 ; accession to the 
throne, murder of Prince Arthur, loss of 
Normandy and the Angevin fiefs, 135-6 ; 
quarrel with the church and submission 
to the pope, 13G-7 ; concession of Magna 
Carta, 137-11 ; last strife with his sub- 
jects, and death, 141-2. 

John, King of France, captivity of, 17-t-.">. 

John of Gaunt : command in France, — 
portrait, — political aims, 176-178 ; his 
descendants, 227. 

Jousou, Ben. 330, 343. 

Junius, Letters of, 538. 

Junto, the, 494. 

Jury trial, 119. 

Justiciar (jiistish'iar), the office of, 91. 

Jutes : their old home (with map), 15-10 ; 
their conquests, 17, 19; map, 111. 

Jutish " long-ship," picture of, 17. 

Kant, Immanuel, 478. 

Katharine of Aragon, portrait, 259 ; mar- 
riage to Prince Arthur, 200 ; marriage to 
Henry VIII., 203; divorce, 209-70; 
death, 273; her daughter Mary, 279, 
293-301. 

Keats, John, 5S3. 

Kelts. See Celts. 

Kenihvorth, 107 ; map, 110, Cb. 

Kent, the kingdom of, 17, 28, 29, 33 ; map, 
42, Dd. 

Kepler, 342. 

Ket's rebellion, 291. 

Khartum (kartoom'), 019 ; map, end lin- 
ing, Le. 

Killiecrankie (kTlTkrah'kT), battle of, 
488-9 ; map, 313. 

Kilsyth (kilsyth'). battle of, 412 ; map, 313. 

King's Bench, Court of, 357. 

King's Court, its origin, 92 ; development 
by Henry II., 118. 

King's deathbed, picture of a Norman, 83. 

Kingship, original character of, among the 
English, 22. See Monarchy. 

Kingsley, Charles, 028. 

Knighthood, 55. 

Knox, John, 311-12. 

Kymry (kym'ry), the, 4. 

Lagos (la'gos), naval battle of, 527 ; map, 

574, Be. 
La Hogue (la hog'), naval battle of, 493 ; 

map, 574, Ca. 
Limb, Charles, 584. 

Lancashire, 258 ; map, front lining, Gd. 
Lancaster, Earl Thomas of, 105-6. 
Lancaster, the House of, its lineage, 227 ; 

its attainment of the crown, 183; its 

rivals, 221 ; its younger brandies, 221-2 ; 

its conflict with the House of York. 223. 

231-8. 
Land League, the Irish, 018. 



Laud-lords and land-less men, 23. 

Landowning interest, oppressive domina- 
tion of, 5S1-3 ; ending of the domination, 
591-4, 599-01 It I. 

Laud question, the Irish, 001, 010, 017-18, 
021. 

Laufranc, Archbishop, 75, 83. 

Laugland, William, the poet, 178, 185. 

Laugside, battle of, 310 ; maji, 313. 

Langton, Stephen, archbishop, 137, 139. 

Language, the English : Norman banish- 
ment from court, 95 ; restored to literary 
use, 184 ; required in the courts, 185. 

Languedoc (longedok'), 174; map, 110, De. 

La Rochelle (Hi roshell'), revolt of, 370-7, 
378-9: map, 574, Bb. 

Latimer, persecution of, 299. 

Latten, 193. 

Laud (lawd), William, influence with 
Charles I. (with portrait), 380 ; tyranny 
as primate, 384-5 ; measures in Scotland, 
380-7 ; arrest for high treason, 391 ; at- 
tainder and execution, 411. 

Lauderdale (law'derdal), Earl of, 453, 461. 

Law, common. See Common law. 

Law, English, the upbuilding of, by Henry 
II., 118-20. 

Law, first treatise on English, 120. 

Law, St. Edward's, 118. 

Lawrence, Henry, 011. 

Lawrence, John, 611. 

Learning: in the dark ages (Europe). 50- 
7, (Ireland), 20-7, (northern England), 30- 
31; extinction by the Danes, 38-9,114; 
in the 13th century (Europe), 134, (Eng- 
land), 156 : 15th century revival in 
Europe, 192 ; backwardness in England, 
229 ; the new learning in England, 279. 

Leibnitz (lipnits'), Gottfried Wilhelm. 342. 

Leicester (lgs'ter), Robert Dudley, Earl of, 
309, 314, 325. 

Leinster (lin'ster or len'ster), the kingdom 
of, 114-15; map, 110, Bb. 

Leslie (les'lte), David, 427. 

Lessing, Gotthold E.. 478. 

Levellers, the, 410. 

Leven, Alexander Leslie, Earl of, 408. 

Lewes (lu'Ts), battle of, 145 ; map, 110, 
Cc. 

Lexington, battle of, 539. 

Leyden (li'den). 300 ; map, 318. 

Liberal Unionists, the, 020-21. 

Life in early England, 43-5 : in mediaeval 
England. 190-205. 

Limerick (lim'erick), treaty of, 491-2 ; 
map, 358, Bb. 

Limoges (lemozh'), 124, 175; map, 110, 
Dd. 

Lincoln, the Roman city, 9 ; map, 42, Cc. 

Lincolnshire, 400 : aiap, front lining, Hd. 

Lineage. See Genealogy. 

Lingard, John, quoted, 299. 

Lionel (H'onel), Duke of Clarence, 201,207, 
221, 227. 

Liquors, spirituous, in mediaeval times, 
195. 

Literature, English : the earliest, 30-33, 
39, 42 ; disappearance from the 11th un- 



662 



INDEX. 



til the 14th century, '.14-5 ; in Chaucer's 
time, 184-5; in the 15th century. 229, 
'J 44; hi the age of Elizabeth ami James 
I.. 330-31 : in the Restoration period, 
468-9, 477-8 ; in the reign of Anne, 498 ; 
in the reign of George III., 583-4 ; in the 
Victorian age. 627-8. 

Literature of Western Europe : mediaeval, 
57 ; the Italian renaissance, 104, 203 : the 
16th century, 254 ; the golden age, 343 ; 
the 18th century. 477-s._ 

Liverpool Ministry, the, 570. 

Liverpool Railway, 590 ; map, 404, Bb. 

Livery and maintenance, 228-9, 257. 

Llywelyn (looel'Tn), Prince of Wales, 'JOS. 

Lochleven (lochle'ven) Castle, 310 ; imi/i. 
313. 

Locke, John, 342. 468, (with portrait) 
469. 

Locomotive " Rocket," Stephenson's, pic- 
ture , 5: 1 1 . 

Lollards, the, 181, 209-10, 212-13, 220. 

Lombards, 52 : map, 574, Cb. 

London: the Roman city, 9; in the 13th 
century (drawing by Matthew Paris), 
142; the Great Fire. 453 : map, 42. Dc. 

Londonderry, siege of, 490-91 ; map, 358, 
Ca. 

Long Parliament, the. 389-418. 

Lord, origin of the word, 23. 

Lord of the Manor, 24. 

Louis Napoleon, 565-8, 008, Oil. 

Louis, Prince, of France, invasion of Eng- 
land by, 141-2. 

Louisburg, capture and relinquishment of, 
522 ; recapture, 526. 

Louisiana, transferred from France to 
Spain. 532. 

Lucknow, rehef of, 011 : nin/i. 520, Cb. 

Luneville (lunavel'). peace at. 571 : map, 
574. Cb. 

Lords, House of. See Parliament. 

Lords of the Congregation. 311-12, 314. 

Lostwithiel, the surrender at. 409; mup. 
4(14. Ac. 

Lothian ceded to the Scots. 45. 

Louis IX. of France (St. Louis). 133, 145. 

Louis XI. of France, 204. 

Louis XII. of France. 250. 265. 

Louis XIII., 345. 

Louis XIV. of France, character and reign. 
345-6 : dealings with Charles II. of Eng- 
land, 451, 453-4; last years, 478-9, 400. 
402-0,. 

Luther, Martin. 240-51. 254, 267. 

Lutzen (loot'sen), battle of, 314 ; ukiji, 574, 
Da. 

Lyme Regis (lyme re'gis). 402 ; map, 404, 
Be. 

Macaulay (makaw'lt). Lord (with portrait), 

0,27. 628. 
Macdonald, Flora. 522. 
Madras (madras'), 522 ; map, 520. Cc. 
Madrid (rnadrTd'), Prince Charles at, 367 ; 

mil)), 574. Bb. 
Magenta (magen'ta), battle of, 566; <»"/'• 

574, Db. 



Magna Carta (mag'na car'ta) : the winning 

of (with facsimile extract), 137-41 : con- 
firmation by Edward I., 151 -•_'. 
Maid of Orleans, the (with picture of 

statue), 217-20. 
Mail, hood of chain, 12th century (picture), 

122. 
Maine, in the dominion of Henry II.. 100 ; 

its loss by John, 130 ; map, 110, Cc. 
Maintenance. 228-9. 
Maitland, F. W., quoted, 110. 
Majuba Hill, battle of, 624 ; map, 025. 
Malcolm, King of Scotland. 67, SO. 
Malebranche (rna)bronsh'), Nicolas, 342. 
Malta (inal'ta), taken from the French, 

571 ; map, 574, Dc. 
Maltolt, or Maltote, 155. 
Man, Isle of, the inhabitants, 4 ; mn p. 404, 

Aa. 
Manchester, Edward Montagu, second Earl 

of. 400. 409, 411. 
Manchester, railway at. 590 ; /»»/'• 404, Bb. 
Manor-house, the mediaeval (with picture), 

loi-:;. 
Manors, 24, 70-72 ; plan of the divisions of 

an old English manor, 71. 
Mantes (mont), 77 ; map, 110, Dc. 
Manufactures, English: medieval. 45. '.),;, 

155. 173, 243; in Elizabeth's reign, 329 ; 

improvement by Huguenot refugees, 400 ; 

industrial revolution, 545-7, 581. 
Map, Walter. 120. 
March, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of, 201, 

207, 212, 221. 
Margaret of Anjou (with a picture), 220-1, 

231-8. 
Margaret of Burgundy, 258. 
Margaret, Scottish queen and saint, 67, 86, 

89. 
Margaret Tudor. 200. 
Maria Theresa, 480-81. 
Marie Antoinette (rnaree' ontwanSt'). 483. 
Markets, mediaeval, 93. 
Marlborough (mawl'bro), the Duchess of, 

499-500. 
Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of, 

470. (with portrait) 403, 499-500. 
Marstou Moor, battle of, 408 ; »<"/<, 104, 

Cb. 
Martyrdom. See Persecution, religious. 
Mary I. (Mary Tudor) (with portrait), 279, 

293-301. 
Mary II., Queen : as heiress to the crown, 

— marriage to the Prince of Orange, 458 ; 

accession jointly with her husband. 4*4 : 

death. 404'. s 

Mary, Duchess of Burgundy, 204-5, 24*. 
Mary of Guise, queen-regent of Scotland, 

278, 311-12. 
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, birth. 278; 

English wooing. 278. 288 ; in France, 288, 

310-12 : claims to the English crown, 

309-10; character (with portrait), 310- 

11: in Scotland, 312-10; imprisonment 

in England, and execution. 316-22 : ef- 
fects of her execution. 322-3, 325. 
Mary Tudor (daughter of Henry VII.), 205, 

293. 



INDEX. 



663 



Maryland, granted to Lord Baltimore, 470. 

Mashain, Mrs.. 500. 

Massachusetts Bay, charter of the Governor 
and Company of, 384-5. 

Matilda (or Maud), queen of William I.. 
47, 77. 

Matilda, queen of Henry I., 80. 

Matilda (the empress), daughter of Henry 
I., 1)7-101. 

Maximilian, the emperor, 205, 24s, 207. 

Mayflower, the voyage of the, 366. 

Mazarin (mazareu'), Cardinal, 545-0. 

Mead, 195. 

Meagher (ma'er). Thomas Francis, 607. 

Mechanic invention, the epoch of, 545-7. 

Mediaeval author at work (picture from an 
old MS.), 121. 

Mediaeval epoch, ending of, 202-3. 

Mediaeval friars, 03. 

Mediaeval life in England, 100-100. 

Mediaeval roads, 105. 

Mediaeval schools, learning, and literature. 
See Learning, and Literature. 

Mediaeval towns and their trade, 74, 92-3, 
125-6. See, also, Hanse Towns. 

Medicis (med'echees), the, 203. 

Medway, burning ships in, 452; hhiji, 404, 
Dc. 

Melbourne (mel'bGrn), Lord, 506-8. 

Mellichope, manor-house at (picture), 192. 

Mendicant friars, 197-0. 

Merchant Adventurers, 173. 

Merchant companies, 230. 

Merchant gilds, 126. 230. 

Mercia (mer'shla), the kingdom of, IS, 20, 
33 ; map, 42, Cc. 

Merton College, Oxford, view of, 155. 

Methodism, the rise of, 516. 

Middle Saxons. 17-18. 

Middlesex, origin of the name of, IS ; map, 
42, Cd. 

Milan (ml'lan) decree, the, 577 ; niaii, 
574, Cb. 

Milton, Jolin, 330, 343, 409, 424, 43S, (with 
portrait) 442, 41 .8. 

Ministerial government : the Cabal, — first 
semblance of a cabinet of ministers. 453 ; 
actual beginning of party ministerial gov- 
ernment, — the Junto, 403-4 ; insignifi- 
cance of Queen Anne, 496-7 ; epoch of 
political parties, 497-8 ; Walpole's prac- 
tical creation of prime ministry and Cabi- 
net, 512-13; helplessness of George I. in 
the hands of his ministers, 509-10 ; ris- 
ing influence of public opinion, 524 ; pro- 
gress of ministerial government checked 
by George III.. 531-2 ; the king as his own 
prime minister. 537-40 ; his failure, — the 
last attempt at royal government, 541 ; 
the last dismissal of a ministry by royal 
command, in opposition to the will of 
Parliament, 500. 

Ministry of all the Talents, the, 575. 

Minorca (urinor'ca), 470. 501. 524; map, 
574, Cc. 

Minorites, 19S. 

Minstrelsy, mediaeval, 57, 101, 106. 

Miracle plays, beginning of, 102. 



Mississippi Scheme, the, 511. 

Mitchell, John, 607. 

Modern era, its beginnings in Europe, 205, 
248 ; in England, 255. 

Mohammedan conquests, 54-5. 

Moliere (molear'), Jean Baptiste, 343. 

Monarchy, the English : origin, limited 
heredity and elective character from the 
beginning, 22 ; monarchical creation of 
orders of nobility, 24-5 ; rise to supremacy 
of the West Saxon kings, 33 ; transient 
Danish conquestof the crown, 46 ; election 
(of Harold) to the kingship from outside 
the royal family. 48 ; invalid claim of the 
Duke of Normandy to the crown. 48, 59- 
60 ; his attainment of it by conquest, 60- 
64 ; English adoption of the Norman 
kings, 82, 88; charter of Henry I., 89- 
90 ; the question of succession to the 
crown on the death of Henry I., — Ste- 
phen's election, 98-99 ; election of Henry 
II.. 101 ; election of John, 135; the Great 
Charter extorted from King John. 157- 
41 ; restraints put on Henry III., 144-7 ; 
beginnings of a representative Parlia- 
ment, 146-51 : Confirmatio Cartarum of 
Edward I., 151-2 ; deposition of Edward 
II. and parliamentary bestowal of the 
crown on Edward III., 167 ; forced abdi- 
cation of Richard II.. and parliamentary 
bestowal of the crown on Henry IV., 183, 
207 ; deference of King Henry IV. to 
Parliament, 210-11 ; period of factious 
king-making, — decline of the popular 
spirit, — Wars of the Roses, 221-3, 228- 
38; usurpation of Richard III., 239-42; 
overthrow and death of Richard, — ac- 
cession of Henry VII., 242 ; weakness of 
the hereditary claim of Henry VII. to the 
throne, 241 ; readiness of the country for a 
revival of arbitrary kingship, 242-3, 255- 
7 ; hardening of despotism under Henry 
VIII.. — subjugation of the church to the 
king. 260-70 ; assumption of the title of 
king of Ireland by Henry VIII. , 277 ; suc- 
cession to the crown fixeu uy the king's 
will, authorized by Parliament, 287, 293 ; 
accession of Mary Tudor, the first female 
sovereign, 294-5 ; monarchical dictator- 
ship in religion under the Tudors, 275-6, 
305 ; question of right to the crown be- 
tween Elizabeth and Mary Stuart, 309- 
10 ; union of the crowns of England and 
Scotland by James I., and his weakening 
of English reverence for royalty, 340-50 ; 
his conflicts with Parliament, 352-:.. :;:<r,- 
6, 350, 361, 364-5; assertion of the doc- 
trine of kingship by divine right, 350-60 ; 
conflicts of Charles I. with Parliament. 
373-4, 377-8, 381-2, 388-05; unconstitu- 
tional acts of Charles I., 376. 382-3, 385- 
6 ; his submissions to the growing power 
of Parliament, 377-8, 389-91, 305; the 
great civil war between King and Parlia- 
ment, — execution of the king, — over- 
throw of the monarchy, 394-5, 405-20 ; 
restoration of the monarchy. 439 -40, 148 ; 
new relaxation of checks on the crown, 



664 



INDEX. 



451 ; recovery of the disposition in Parlia- 
ment to restrain the crown, 452 ; failure 
of attempts to exclude James II. from 
the succession to Charles II., — accession 
of James II.. 457-01 ; conflicts of James 
II. with both Parliament and the church, 
and his expulsion from the throne, 404- 
7 ; bestowal of the crown by Parliament 
on his daughter, Mary, and her husband, 
William of Orange, subject to constitu- 
tional restrictions in a Bill of Rights, 
4X4-5 ; beginning of party ministerial 
government, 493-4 ; Act of Settlement, 
conveying the crown to the House of Han- 
over, 4115 ; weakening of royalty under 
Queen Anne, — the sovereign slipping into 
the background of politics, 497 ; rise of 
political parties, 497-8 : further weaken- 
ing of royalty under George I., 509-10 ; 
establishment of the cabinet and minis- 
terial government by Walpole, 512-13; 
progress in the ministerial system checked 
by George III., 531-2 ; his failure in the 
last attempt at dictatorial kingship in 
England. 541 : final establishment of the 
ministerial system of government, with 
sole responsibility to Parliament. 596. 

Monasteries : of the Cistercians, 95-6 ; 
mediaeval hospitality of, 197 ; suppression 
by Henry VIII. and Edward VI.. 273-5, 
290 ; destruction in Scotland, 312. 

Monk (muiik). General George, in Scot- 
land, 429 ; in naval command, 431 ; ac- 
tion in the restoration of the monarchy 
(with portrait), 439-40. 

Monks, mediaeval, 197. 

Monmouth, the Duke of : proposed for the 
throne, 458 ; rebellion, defeat, and death, 
4G2-3. 

Monopolies, royal, 333, 305. 

Montfort, Simon de : the Baron's War, 
143-7 ; his parliament (12G5). 146 ; his 
death, 147 ; also, 198. 

Montenegro (montaiia'gro), war with 
Turkey, 508 ; map, 574, Eb. 

Montrose (mSntrose'), James Graham, Mar- 
quis of, raising the Highlanders for 
Charles I. (with portrait), 411-13; re- 
newed attempt for Charles II., betrayal 
and death, 420. 

Moore, Sir John, 579. 

Moors in Spain, 54, 57, 133, 205. 

Moot, the, 22-3. 

More, Sir Thomas (with portrait), 270, 272- 
3, 279. 

Morris, William, G2S. 

Mortimer, Roger, 1G6-7. 

Mortimer's Cross, battle of, 234 , map, 110, 
Cb. 

Moscow (mdVko), Napoleon at, 504 : map, 
back lining, Lc. 

Motley, John Lothrop, quoted, 327. 

Minister (mxin'ster), the kingdom of. 114- 
15; map, 110, Ab. 

Murray, James Stuart, Earl of, 312-14, 316- 
17. 

Music, mediaeval. 199 : in the 18th century, 
478. 



Mutiny Act, the, 487. 
Mutiny in the English fleet, 557. 
Mutiny of the Sepoys, 610-11. 
Mysore (niysore'), 542 ; map, 526, Be. 
Mysteries, 230. 

Nantes (Hants), edict of, 253 ; repeal, 34G ; 

map, 574, Bb. 
Napoleon Bonaparte : his rise to power, 

483, 555, 557-8 ; his wars, his imperial 

coronation, and his fall, 5G2-4, 571-80. 
Napoleon III. See Louis Napoleon. 
Naseby, battle of, 412-13 ; map, 404, Cb. 
Natal (natal'), 622; map, 625. 
Navigation Act of 1051, 430 ; of 1003 and 

1072, 109-70. 
Nelson, Lord, 550, 558 (with portrait), 

Netherlands, the : early industry and 
trade, 50, 132-3 ; absorbed in the Bur- 
gundian dominion, 102-3 ; early schools, 
163; under Spanish rule, — revolt and 
long struggle, 250, 252, 318, 325; inde- 
pendence of the United Provinces of the 
north (the Dutch provinces), — submis- 
sion to Spain of the southern (Flemish or 
Belgian) provinces, 340-7 ; war of the 
United Provinces (called Holland) with 
the English Commonwealth, 430-31 ; 
wars with England, — loss of New Neth- 
erlands, 1005-7 and 1072-4, 451-2, 454-0 ; 
resistance to Louis XIV., 346, 454, 478-9, 
492 ; Spanish Netherlands ceded to Aus- 
tria, 479 ; subjection to revolutionary 
France, — loss of colonies. 555, 572: a 
Napoleonic kingdom, 503 ; union and 
separation of Holland and Belgium, 505. 
See, also, Flanders. 

Nevilles, the, 222, 227. 

Nevill's Cross,battle of , 171 ; map, 110, Cb. 

Newbum, battle of, 389 ; map, 404, Ca. 

Newbury, first and second battles of, 400- 
7, 409 ; map, 404, Cc. 

Newcastle, Thomas Pelham, Duke of, 520, 
525. 

Newcastle, William Cavendish, Marquis of, 
400, 408-9. 

New England ; beginning of the settlement, 
300 ; Puritan emigration to, 384-5. 

New Forest, the, 70, .87 ; map, 43, Cd. 

Newfoundland (nu'fondlSnd), 479, B01, 
615 ; map, end lining, He. 

New learning, the, 279. 

Newmarket, 415, 459 ; map, 404, Db. 

New model army, the, 410-11. 

Newspapers, the beginnings of news report- 
ing, 407-8. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 342 (with portrait), 
4i ;s. 

Newton Butler, battle of. 491 ; map, 358, 
Ca. 

New York, conquest from the Dutch, 
451-3, 470. 

New Zealand, added to the British Empire, 
537 ; participation in the Boer War, 027 ; 
map, end lining, Ah. 

Nibelungenlied (ne'beliingenled) construc- 
tion of the, 57. 



INDEX. 



665 



Nicholson, John, 611. 

Nile, battle of, 558 ; map, 564, Fc. 

Nineteenth century, survey of general his- 
tory, 561-70. 

Nobility, the official character of the Eng- 
lish, 150-51. 

Nonconformists : the expulsion from pul- 
pits and colleges, 4511 ; refusal to read 
James II. 's Declaration of Indulgence, 
466 ; oppressions lightened by Walpole, 
514 ; admission to the Universities, 616. 

Non-Jurors, the, 488. 

Norfolk, origin of the name of, 18 : map, 
42, Dc. 

Norfolk, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of, 
execution of, 317. 

Norman Conquest, 59-77. 

Norman-English nation, the fusing of the, 
82-102. 

Norman influence on English civilization, 
190. 

Norman kings, lineage of the, 108. 

Norman vessel, 11th century (picture), 61. 

Normandy : Duchy founded by Northman, 
47 ; a fief of the French crown, 5 1 ; united 
with England under William the Con- 
queror, 59-66 ; separation and reunion, 
82, S4-0 ; second separation and reunion, 
88 ; third, 100-101 ; final separation, 136 ; 
miip, 110, Dc. 

North, Lord (with portrait), 537-41, 543-4. 

" North Briton, the," 533. 

Northampton, battle of, 233; map, 110, 
Cb. 

Northmen, expeditions of the, 37-8 ; map, 
38 ; settlement in Normandy, 47. See, 
also, Danes. 

Northumberland : early English culture in, 
30-32 ; its extinction by the Danes, 38-9 ; 
wasted by the Conqueror, 66 ; Scottish 
forays into, 67, 86, 99 ; map, front lining, 

■ He. 

Northumberland, John Dudley, Duke of, 
292-5. 

Northumbria or Northumberland, the king- 
dom of, 18, 2S-9, 33 ; map, 42, Cb. 

Nottingham, 403 ; map, 404, Cb. 

Nova Scotia, acquired from France, 479, 
501 ; map, end lining, 6c. 

Oates, Titus (with picture), 456-7. 

O'Brien, William Smith, 607. 

O'Briens of Minister, 115. 

O'Connell, Daniel, 589. (with portrait) 600- 

001. 
O'Neils of Ulster, the, 115, 333. 
Opium War, the, 59S. 
Orange Free State, 622-3. 027 : map, 625. 
Orange, William of. See William III. 
Orangemen, 556. 
Ordeals, 120. 
Orderic Vitalis, 94. 
Orders in Council, 575-8. 
Orkney Islands, 37 ; map, 38. 
Orleans, delivered by Joan of Arc, 218-9 : 

map, 110, Dd. 
Oswald. King, 29. 
Oswy, King, 29. 



Oudenarde (oo'denard), battle of, 500 ; mit/i. 
r.74, Ca. 

Outlanders of the Transvaal, 625-7. 

Oxford : first lectures at, 102 ; the univer- 
sity in the 13th century, 150 ; headquar- 
ters of Charles I., 404, 414; map, 110, 
Cc. 

Oxford, the Provisions of, 143-4. 

Painting. See Art. 

Palatine Elector, Frederick, 343-4, 362, 
363-4 ; map, 574, 0b. 

Pale, the English, in Ireland, 115 ; map, 
358, Cb. 

Palestine Crusades, 55 ; King Richard in, 
123 ; map, 574, Fc. 

Palmerston (piim'erston), Lord, 598, 608- 
14. 

Papal. See Church, Early and Mediaeval. 

Pardoners, 196. 

Paris, Congress of (1850), 609; map, 110, 
Dc. 

Paris, Matthew : his history, 150 ; drawing 
of London in the 13th century, 142. 

Paris, treaty of (1703), 481. 

Parish, the, 24. 

Parish Councils, 021. 

Parliament (par'liment), evolution of the 
English: beginnings of a representative 
system in the local "folk-moots," 22 '■'•; 
the Witenagemot not a folk-moot, 26 ; it 
becomes under William the Conqueror an 
assembly of the tenants-in-chief of the 
crown, 75 ; its name changed to The Great 
Council, 92 ; influence of the jury system 
on the extension of the representative 
system, 120, 125; the first representative 
national council, 137-8 ; provision in 
Magna Carta against taxation without 
consent of the Council, 141 ; adoption of 
the name Parliament for the Great Coun- 
cil, 144; first representation of the Com- 
mons in Parliament by knights of the 
shire, 14(5 ; first representation of towns, 
in the Parliament of Simon de Montford, 
146; unsettled make-up of Parliament 
until the " Model Parliament '] of Edward 
I., 148-9 ; significance and importance of 
the union of country and town in the 
represented " Commons " or " Third Es- 
tate " of England, official character given 
to the English nobility by the Peerage 
of Parliament, 149-51 ; importance of 
the confirmation of Magna Carta by Ed- 
ward I., 151-2 ; division of Parliament 
into the House of Com mons and House of 
Lords, — growing boldness of the Com- 
mons, 173 ; first exercise of the power to 
impeach ministers, 178 ; parliamentary- 
bestowal of the crown on Henry IV., 
183, 207 ; strengthening of the Commons 
under Henry IV., 210-11 ; steps toward se- 
curing parliamentary freedom of speech, 
211 ; decline of popular spirit and limita- 
tion of the parliamentary franchise, 228- 
31 ; national apathy during the Wars of 
the Roses, 237 : practical destruction of 
the old nobility, and loss of representative 



666 



INDEX. 



character in both Houses of Parliament, 
245 : Parliament becoming an instrument 
to be used by the Tudor sovereigns, 255- 
; submissiveness of Parliament to the 
crown under Henry VIII., Edward VI., 
Mary, and Elizabeth, 270-71. 275-6, 'Jim, 
296, 298, 308 : influence of religious feel- 
ing in rewakening a political spirit. 332- 
3 ; resistance of Parliament to the regal 
pretensions of .lames I., 352-3, 355-G, 
359, 361, 364-6; conflicts of Charles I. 
with his first and second Parliaments, 
37:; 5 : the forcing of royal assent to the 
Petition of Right, 377-8 ; Charles's gov- 
ernment without Parliament, 382-8; 
meeting of the " Long Parliament " and 
its constitutional enactments. 389-91 : 
attitude of a Puritan majority in the Com- 
mons, leading to war. 394-5; king and 
Parliament at war, 403-13 ; Presbyterians 
and Independents and Parliament and 
army at strife, 409-11, 414-17 ; "Pride's 
purge," reducing the Long Parliament to 
"the Rump," — trial and execution of 
the king, 418-20 ; government of the 
Commonwealth by the Rump. 424-50; 
Cromwell's dissolution of the Rump, 
431-3; the Barebones Parliament, 433-4; 
Parliaments of the Protectorate, 434-7 : 
restoration of the Rump by the army, 
439; restoration of the Long Parliament 
by General Monk. 440 ; the Convention 
Parliament of 1660 and its restoration of 
the monarchy, 440, 448-9 ; the Cavalier 
Parliament. 449-52; rise of the Country 
Party, 455-6; evolution of Whig and 
Tory parties. 458-9 ; Parliament and King 
James 1 1. , 404-0 ; the parliamentary revo- 
lution of KISS, giving the crown to Wil- 
liam and Mary, subject to the Bill of 
Rights, 484-5 ; parliamentary settlement 
of the succession to the crown. 495; be- 
ginning of party ministerial government 
and the epoch of political parties. 193-4, 
496-8 : supremacy given to Parliament by 
the helplessness of George I., 509-10; 
parliamentary corruption. 514, 520, 531- 
2 ; recovery of royal influence in Parlia- 
ment by George III., 531-2,537-8; fail- 
ure of the last attempt at dictatorial king- 
ship. 541 ; oppressive domination of the 
landowning interest in Parliament. 581- 
3; falsity of the representation of the 
people in the House "J < 'ommons, 591-3 ; 
passage of the First Reform Bill, — oppo- 
sition of the Lords, 593-4 : last dismissal 
of a ministry by the king without a vote 
of the Commons, 596 ; the Second Re- 
form of Parliament, 015 ; the Third Re- 
form, 618-19. 

Parnell (par'nell), Charles Stuart. 618. 

Parties, political : rise of a semi-political 
religious party in the 14th century, — the 
Lollards. 170 -SI ; the semi-political par- 
ties of Puritanism and religious Inde- 
pendency, in the reigns of Elizabeth and 
the Brst Stuarts, 331 2, 379-81 . 389 ; Puri- 
tanism divided on church questions. 391- 



3, 304-5 ; semi-political religious parties 
in the civil war and during the Common- 
wealth and Protectorate, 403-4, 409-11, 
414-17. 424 ; similar parties at the Re- 
storation. 448-51 ; rise of the Country 
Party, 455-6 ; formation of the parties of 
"Whigs" and "Tories," 458-'. I ; begin- 
ning of party ministerial government, 
493-4; the epoch of distinctly political 
parties. 407-8 ; the long supremacy of 
the Whigs, 510; the new Tory party of 
George III.. 532 : division of the Tories, 
— Canningites, 587-90; reconstructed 
parties with new names, — Conservative 
and Liberal, instead of Tory and Whig, 
595-6; Chartists, 598-9 ; second division 
of the Tories, — Peelites. 599-601 : 607-8 : 
Irish Home Rule party, 618-21 ; Liberal 
Unionists. 620-21. 

Pascal, Blaise. 343. 

Patrick, St., in Ireland, 2G. 

Peace Congress, the. 570. 

Peasants revolt in 1381, the, 179-81. 

Peel. Sir Robert, early political career, 
588-90; leader of advanced Tories (with 
portrait). 505-0; abolition of the Corn 
Laws. 599-600; close of ministry. 601; 
leader of an independent party, — death, 
607-8. 

Peelites, the, 607-8. 

Peerage, official character of the English, 
150-51. 

Pelhaius (pel'amz), the, 520. 

Peninsular War. the, 578-9. 

Penn, Admiral Sir William. 430, 437-8. 

Pennsylvania granted to William Penn, 
470. 

Penny postage, 508. 

Perceval, Spencer, 575. 570. 

Perries, the. JOS. 212. 

Persecutions, religious: of Lollards. 181. 
209-10, 212-13; under Henry VIII., 
272 5. 'J70 ; under Edward VI., 292 ; un- 
der Mary. 208-300 ; under Elizabeth, 
320-21, 331-2; of Nonconformists under 
Charles II.. 450-51. 455 ; of Catholics for 
the so-called Popish Plot, 457. 

Perth, capture of, by Cromwell, 427 ; miiji, 
313. 

Peter the Great of Russia, 470. 

Peterborough. 04 ; niup, 110, Cb. 

Petition of Right. 377-8. 

Petrarch (pe'triirk), 104. 

Pevensey (peven'sey), 02 ; map, 42, Dd. 

Philip of Burgundy, 205. 

Philip II. of Spain, 252-3. (with portrait) 
296-300, 317-28. 

Philip V. of Spain, 470. 

Philip Augustus, of France, 133, 135, 138. 

Philiphaugh, battle of, 413 ; map, 313. 

Philosophy, modern, the beginnings of, 
342-;;. 

Phoenician (f emsh'an) tin trade, 5 ; map, 
574. Fc. 

Physical geography of Great Britain, 1-2 ; 
map, 2. 

Picts and Scots, 7, 11, 15 ; map, 10. 

Piers Plowman, the Vision of, 178. 



INDEX. 



667 



Pilgrimage of Grace, the, 274. 

Pilgrimages, mediaeval, 196. 

Pilgrim Fathers of New England, 332, 366. 

Pillory, the (picture), 457 ._ 

Pinkie Cleugh (pin'kie clu), battle of , 288 ; 
map, 313. 

Piracy in the 16th century, 323-4. 

Pitt, William, the elder, beginning of his 
career, 515, 520 ; his great administra- 
tion, with portrait, 524-28 ; defense of 
the American colonies, 535-7 ; made earl 
of Chatham, 536 ; death, 54:'.. 

Pitt, William, the younger, first ministry, 
with portrait, 540-5, 553-9; second min- 
istry, 573-75. 

Plagues. 161, 171-2, 45:',. 

Plantagenet (plantag'enet), origin of the 
name, '.17. 

Plantagenet kings, lineage of the early, 
130 : of the later. 201. 

Plassey (plas'I), battle of, 527; map, 526, 
Cb. 

Plymouth (plim'uth), settlement of, 366. 

Poetry. See Literature. 

Poitiers (pwatia'), battle of, 174 ; uiaji, 
110, Dd. 

Poitou (pwatoo'), in the dominion of Henry 
II., 109; map, 110, Cd. 

Poland, 164, 206, '-'5:;, :;47, 480, 482; map, 
574, Ea. 

Pole, Reginald. 276, 298, 300-1. 

Political corruption, 450, 402, 514-15, 520, 
531. 

Pomfret, death of Richard II. at, 208; 
map, no. Cb. 

Ponthieu (pon'thieu), 175, nut/), 174. 

Poor laws, beginning of English, 329-30. 

Poor priests, Wiclif's, 178, 181. 

Popes. See Church, Early and Mediaeval. 

Popish Plot, the, 456-8. 

Portland Ministry, the. 575, 570. 

Portsmouth (ports'muth), 379 ; nui/i, 404, 
Cc. ■ 

Portuguese discovery and trade, 202, 253-4, 
34S.' 

Postage, penny, 508. 

Postal system, the beginnings of a, 467. 

Post-nati, the. 355-6. 

Post-office savings banks, 012. 

Powick Bridge, fight at, 404 ; map, 404, 
Bb. 

Poynings Laws, 262, 542. 

Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VI.. 480. 

Prayer Book, the English, 200, 308. 

Prehistoric inhabitants, 3. 

Premier. See Prime Minister. 

Presbyterian church system. 332. 

Presbyterians : rise, 332 ; in the Long Par- 
liament, — conflict with Independents 
and army, 410-11, 414-1S ; partial exclu- 
sion from parliamentary suffrage under 
the Protectorate, 434 ; in the Parliament 
of the Restoration, 440 ; treatment at the 
Restoration, 440-51 See, also, Covenan- 
ters, Scottish. 

Press, freedom of the. 533-4. 538, 500. 

Preston, battle of. 417 : map, 404, Bb. 

Preston Pans, battle of. 521 ; map, 313, 



Pretender, the : (called James III.), 502-.'!, 
5lo ; Charles Edward, the Young, 521-2. 

Pride's Purge, 418. 

Prime Ministry, the English, created by 
Walpule, 512-13. 

Princes, the murdered, 230-41. 

Printing : effects of the invention, 202 : in- 
troduction in England, 244. 

Protective duties, 5X1-2, 000. 

Protector of the Commonwealth, Oliver 
Cromwell, 434. 

Protectorate of Cromwell, the, 434-8. 

Protectorates, British, 034-5. 

Protectors of the Realm, the Duke of Bed- 
ford, 217 : the Duke of York. 232 ; the 
Duke of Gloucester, 230 ; the Duke of 
Somerset, 288. 

Protestant Reformation, 240-53. 

Prussia : the rise, 344 ; made a kingdom, 
481 : under Frederick the Great. 480-82, 
522-28, 5"o-; overthrow by Napoleon and 
reconstruction, 503 ; leadership in unifi- 
cation of Germany, 567-8 ; mnp, 574, Da. 

Prynne (prin), William. 384. 

Pulteney (pult'nt), William. 515. 

Puritans, Puritanism : rise under Eliza- 
beth, 331-2 ; under James I., 350-51 ; 
conflict with Charles I.. 070-N4, 389 ; 
emigration to New England, 3X4-5 ; divi- 
sions of party. 391-2, 304-5, 400-18 ; Pur- 
itans of the Commonwealth and Protec- 
torate, 440-41 ; Puritan dress (picture), 
441 ; Puritanism after the Restoration, 
407. 

Purveyance, 107. 

Pym (pym), John, 374 ; portrait, 375 ; in 
the Long Parliament, 391-2, 304; death, 
407. 

Pyrenees (pTr'enez), treaty of the, 345-6. 

Pytheas (pyth'eas), voyage of, to Britain, 5. 

Pyx, the, 100. 

Quebec, capture of, 52G ; maji, end lining, 

Gc. 
Quiberon (kebroii') Bay, naval battle of, 

528 : map, 574, Bb. 

Racine (raseen'), Jean Baptiste, 343. 

Railways : the first, 590 ; Stephenson's 
locomotive " Rocket." picture. 501 . 

Raleigh (raw'li), Sir Walter. 254, 320, 328, 
353, (with portrait), 362-3. 

Ramillies (rameye'), battle of, 500; map, 
574, Ca. 

Rand, the gold fields of the, 025 ; map, 625. 

Ranke (ran'keh), Leopold von, quoted, 300. 

Rastadt (rastaf), treaty of, 479. 

Reade, Charles, 628. 

Re (ra). Isle of, Buckingham's expedition 
to. 370-7 : ni'iji, 574. Bb. 

Red King, the. See William II. 

Reeve, the, 23. 

Reform Bill, the First, 501-4: the Second, 
015; the Third. 618-19. 

Reformation, the Protestant : on the Con- 
tinent. 200. 249-53; in England. 271 -3 ; 
275. 288 00. 292, 300-0. 331-2; in Scot- 
land. 011 14. 



668 



INDEX. 



Regicides, execution of the, 448. 
Reign of Terror, the, 4s:;. 
Renaissance, the, 1(14, 202-8, 270, 342. 
Repeal movement, the Irish, 600-601. 
Representation. See Parliament. 
Republicanism among the Roundheads, 

409-10,416. 
Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, 440, 

448. 
Retainers, 228-9. 
Revolution of 1688, the English, 407, 484- 

93. 
Revolutions, European, of 1820-30 and 

1848, 565. 
Revolution, the French, 4.N2-3 ; English 

attitude towards, 553-4. 
Rheims (rimz), Joan of Arc at, 219 ; map, 

110, Ec. 
Rhodes, Cecil, 626. 
Rhodesia, 626 ; map, 625. 
Richard I. (called Cceur de Lion), strife 

with his brothers and his father, 117 ; his 

character, his government, his crusade, 

his captivity, his death, 121-4 ; his effigy, 

123. 
Richard II.. and the peasant revolt, 178- 

81; and the ducal factions, 181-2; his 

change in conduct. 182-3; his deposition, 

183; his death, 208. 
Richard III., as Duke of Gloucester, 239; 

as usurper of the crown (witli portrait), 

2: '.'.1-42. 
Richard, Duke ofYork, 231-4. 
Richelieu (resheloo'), Cardinal, 344-5,375- 

6. 
Roads, mediaeval, 195. 
Roads, Roman, witli picture, 111. 
Robert of Normandy, J7, 82, 84-5, 88, 98. 
Robespierre (roHjespeer), 483. 
Robin Hood, 121. 
Robsart, Amy, 309. 
Rochester, the Roman city, ; map, 42. 

Dd. 
Rochester Castle, picture of the keep of, 

85. 
Rockingham Ministry, the, 536, 541. 543. 
Roger Hoveden. 120. 
Roger of Salisbury, 91, 100. 
lingers, J. T. Thorold, quoted, 192-4, 229. 

280. 
Rolf, or Rollo, first duke of Normandy, 47. 
Roman bath, picture of remains of. 9. 
Roman Britain (with map), 7-11 ; map, 8. 
Roman Catholic church, its beginning as 

so named, 249. See, also, Catholics, Ro- 
man. 
Roman Empire : its fall, 11-12 ; mediaeval 

revival. See Empire. 
Roman roads (with picture). 10. 
Roman walls in Britain, 7-8. 
Romanesque architecture, development of, 

58, 134. 
Roo* and Branch bill, 391. 
Rosebery Ministry, the, 621. 
Roses, Wars of the. See Wars of the Roses. 
Rouen (robSn'), siege by Henry V., 215: 

map. 111). DC. 

Roundheads, origin of the name, 5'.):'.. 



Royal Society of England, formation of, 
412. 

Hump, the, 418, 424, 428, 431-3,439-40. 

Runic letters, 32. 

Runnymede (with present view of), 139- 
4ii; map, 110. Cc. 

Rupert, Prince, 404-5, 408, 413. 

RuskJuQ, John. 628. 

Russell, Lord John, 001, 607-8, 014. 

Russell, William, Lord, 456, 459-00. 

Russia : beginnings of the empire, 101, 200 ; 
the first Tsar, 253 ; under Peter the Great, 
348, 47!) : under Catherine II., 481-2; 
conflict with Napoleon, — burning of Mos- 
cow, 564 ; Crimean War, 566, 608-9 ; war 
with Turkey (1877), 568-9; advance in 
Asia, 569 ; map, 574, Ea. 

Rye House Plot, the, 459. 

Ryswick (rtz'wTk), the Peace of, 404 ; map, 
574, Ca. 

Sac and soc, rights of, 25. 

Sacheverell (sasheVergl), Doctor, 501. 

St. Alban's abbey church, view in, 94. 

St. Albans, council at, in 1213, 137. 

St. Albans, first battle of, 232 ; second bat- 
tle, 234; map. 42, Cc. 

St. Andrews, burning at, 311 ; map, 313. 

St. Bartholomew's Day, massacre of. 253. 

St. Giles's (sent jilz') Church, Edinburgh, 
riot in (with picture of church), 387. 

St. Louis. See Louis IX. 

St. Vincent Cape, battle off, 55G ; map, 
574, Be. 

Saladin (sal'adin) and the Saladin Tithe, 
117. 

Salamanca, battle of, 579 ; map, 574, Bb. 

Salic Law, the, 169. 

Salisbury (sawlz'berT), Countess of, execu- 
tion, 276. 

Salisbury, Lord Robert Cecil, third mar- 
quis of, 610-21. 

Salisbury Plain, the Conqueror's great as- 
sembly on. 76 ; map, 42. Cd. 

Sardinia : the Duke of Savoy made King, 
480 : King Victor Emmanuel made King 
of Italy, 566 : map. 574. Cb. 

Savonarola (siivoniiro'la), 206. 

Savoy (savoy'), the Duke becomes King of 
Sardinia, 480. 

Saxon cross, picture of, 27. 

Saxons : the German home (map), 15-16 ; 
conquests and settlements in England, 
17-19, 

Schiller, Friedrich von, 478. 

Schleswig (shles'wig), the old English home 
in. 15 ; map, 16. 

Schools, elementary. See Education. 

Schools, mediaeval. See Learning. 

Science, modern : the beginnings. 254. 343. 
442 : in the 18th century, 469, 477 ; in the 
19th century, 628. 

Scone (skoon), the kingdom of, 45 ; map, 
313. 

Scotland : the Gaelic inhabitants, 4 ; failure 
of the Romans to subdue the northern 
tribes. 7-8 ; harassing of the Britons by 
the Picts and Scots, — Irish origin of the 



INDEX. 



669 



Scots, 11-12; division of Britain at the 
end of the (ith century, 11) ; incursions 
of the Northmen, 3(i ; formation of the 
Kingdom of the Scots, — acquisition of 
Lothian, including Edinburgh, 45 ; mar- 
riage of King Malcolm to the English 
Princess Margaret, 07 ; his submission 
and homage to William the Conqueror, 
67 ; Scottish hostilities with the English, 
86, 99-100, 110, 116; release from fealty 
to the English crown bought from Richard 
I., 122; English overlordship reestab- 
lished by Edward I., 152; Scottish War 
of Independence, 153 ; independence re- 
covered, 1GG ; again surrendered by John 
Balliol, — war with Edward III!, 168 ; 
captivity of King David, 171 ; peace, with 
independence, restored, 175 ; war with 
Henry IV., '208; origin of the Stuart 
Family, — captivity of James I., 209; 
support given to the pretender, Perkin 
Warbeck, against Henry VII., 258 ; mar- 
riage of King James IV. to Margaret, 
daughter of Henry VII., 260; fatal wars 
of James IV. and James V. with Eng- 
land, 264, 278 ; birth of Mary Stuart, 
278 ; English wooing of the infant Queen 
Mary, 278, 288 ; betrothal and marriage 
of Mary in France, 2S8, 310 ; her claims 
to the English crown, — and the feeling 
of English Catholics towards her, 310 ; 
lier widowhood and return to Scotland, 
310, 312 ; the Reformation in Scotland, 
311-12 ; Queen Mary's marriage to Darn- 
ley and his murder, — her marriage to 
Bothwell, — her deposition and escape 
to England, — her detention by Queen 
Elizabeth, 314-17 ; her execution, 321- 
2 ; its effects, 322-3 ; accession of her 
son James to the English throne, — 
union of the' crowns, 334, 349 ; his char- 
acter, 349-50 ; his efforts to complete the 
union of kingdoms, 352, 355-6 ; interfer- 
ence of Charles I. with the Scottish Pres- 
byterian church, and the consequent 
" Bishops' Wars," 386-9 ; Solemn League 
and Covenant with the English Parlia- 
ment against the king, 407 ; the Scottish 
army at Marston Moor, 408-9 ; Montrose 
and the Highlanders, 411-13 ; surrender 
of King Charles to the Scots and his de- 
livery to the English, 413-15 ; Charles's 
intrigues with the Scots, — their invasion 
of England and defeat at Preston, 415- 
17 ; Scottish agreement with Charles II., 

— war with the English, — defeat by 
Cromwell at Dunbar and Worcester, — 
practical subjugation, 425-9 ; representa- 
tion in the Barebones Parliament, 433 ; 
union with England decreed by Crom- 
well, 435 ; joy at the restoration of the 
monarchy, — persecution of Covenanters 
under Charles II., 460-61 ; the Argyle 
rebellion, 462; the Revolution of 1688, 

— restoration of the Kirk, 488-9 ; final 
parliamentary union with England, 500 ; 
Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, 510, 
521. 



Scotland, historical map of, 313. 

Scott, Sir Walter (with portrait), 583. 

Scrooby congregation, 332, 366; map, 404, 
Cb. 

Sculpture. See Art. 

Scutage, 111. 

Sea-power, English : beginnings, 322-8 ; 
revival under the Commonwealth and 
Protectorate, 429-31; decline under 
Charles II.. 452 ; increase in the wars of 
the 18th century, 502, 527-8, 540-41, 
554-5 ; in the Napoleonic wars, 573-4, 
576-8, 580. 

Sebastopol (sebasto'pS), siege of, 609 ; 

mail, 574 Fb. 

Sedgemoor, battle of, 463 ; map, 404 Be. 
Seine (san) River, 213 ; map, 574 Cb. 
Self-denying Ordinance, 410-12. 
Seminarists, 320. 
Senlac, or Hastings, battle of, G2-3 ; map. 

42 Dd. 
Sepoys (se'poys), origin, 527 ; mutiny, 610- 

11. 
Septennial Act, the, 510. 
Serfs, slaves, 72-3. 
Seven Bishops, trial of the, 465-6. 
Seven Weeks' War, the, 567. 
Seven Years' War, the, 481, 522-28, 532. 
Seventeenth century, general survey of, 

342-8. 
Servia, 568; map, 574 Eb. 
Seymour (see'mur), Jane, 273, 276, 278-9. 
Seymour, Lord Thomas, 288, 291. 
Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, first 

earl of, 453, 455-9. 
Shakespeare, William (with portrait), 330- 

1, 343. 
Sheep-raising, increased, 280, 291 . 
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 583. 
Shelburne Ministry, the, 543. 
Shenstone, William, 583. 
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 543. 
Sheriff, origin of office_and title, 74. 
Sheriffmuir (sherifmur'), battle of, 516 ; 

iaaj>, 313. 
Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood in, 121 ; map, 

110 Cb. 
Shetland Islands, 37 ; map, 38. 
Ship of war. English, time of Henry VIII. 

(picture). 266. 
Ship-money, 385-6, 391. 
Shire, the, 22. 
Shire-moots, 22, 68, 83, 92. 
Short Parliament, the, 388. 
Shrewsbury (shrooz'bert), battle of. 209, 

map, 110 Cb. 
Sidney, Algernon. 456, 459-60. 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 325, 330. 
Silchester, the Roman city, 9 ; map, 42 Cd. 
Silesia (slle'shia), 481 j map, 574 Da. 
Simnel, Lambert, 257-8. 
Six Articles, the, 275. 290. 
Sixteenth century, general survey of. 248 

54. 
Slave trade, medieval. 27, 114; suppression 

of African, 575. 
Slavery : in early England, 21, 72-3 ; aboli- 
tion in British colonies, 594. 



670 



INDEX. 



Sluys(slois), naval fight off, 170: map, 110. 

Dc 
Smith, Adam, " The Wealth of Nations, 

546. _ 

Sobieski (sobees'kee). •>*'. ,.,.., 

Social conditions in early England, 21-6, 

43-5 ; mediaeval, 190-9. 
Social effects of the Black Death, 172. 
Solemn League and Covenant, the. 40,, 

Solferino_ (solfere'no). battle of, 500 ; 

Solwav Moss, battle of, 278 ; map, 404 Ba. 

Somerset (sum'erset), the British inhabit- 
ants of 19 I map, front lining, Ge. 

Somerset, Edward Seymour, Duke of. Lord 
Protector, -*S-'.i-'. ,.,, n „ 

Somme(somm), River 'Jll: map, 110, Dc. 

Song of the Traveller. 30. 

Sophia (sSfi'a), Electress of Hanover, 495, 

South African Republic, the, 017, (with 

map) 0-JJ-7 : map, 625. 
Southampton (suthhamp'tonU 216; map, 

lio, Cc. 
South Saxon kingdom, the, 1., *J : /»"/'- 

42 Cd. 

South Sea Bubble, the, .»lli- 
Spain : the struggle of Christians with 
Moors, 54, 57, 133: early popular insti- 
tutions, 133 ; union of Castile and Aragon 
and final conquest of the Moors 205; 
under the emperor, Charles V, 249 -; , 
under Philip H-, 252; conflict with 
Dutch and English, 322-5; the Great 
Armada, 325-7; in the 17th century. 
Ml ■ wars of the 17th century, 367, 373- 
fi 385 ; wars of the 18th century. 478-81, 
496-502, 511, 515-16, 520-22, 532; alli- 
ance with the United States, 540 con- 
flict with Napoleon, 563-4 : loss of Span- 
ish colonics. 565; war with the United 
States, 569, 621 ; map, 574, Bb. 

Spanish marriage question (reign ot James 
I J 356, 361-2, 364 5, 367. 

Spenser, Edmund (with portrait), 330. 

Spice Islands. 555; map, back lining Qe. 

Spinning and weaving m Anglo-Saxon 
times, 45. 

Sports, mediaeval, 199. 

Squires, the, 498. . , 

Stadtholder of the United Provinces. ..4, 

Stage coach in 1804 (picture), 577. 

Stamford Bridge, battle of, 62 ; map, 42, 

Stamp Act, the (with picture), 535-6. 
Standard, battle of (with picture!, 00-100; 

map, (Cow ton Moor) 110. Cb. 
Staple, the, 154-5, 173. . 

Star Chamber court. 251 : revival DJ 

Charles I., 3834 ; abolition by the Long 

Parliament. 391. 
States-General of France. 162. _ 

States-General of France : meeting in 1 . 8J, 

483. 
Steamboats, the first, 590. 
Steam engine, invention of, o4o. 
Steele, Richard, 408. 



Steelyard, the, ill London (with an early 

picture). 154. 
Stephen (of Blois), King (with portrait), 

Stephenson I ste'venson), George, 590-91. 

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 628. 

Stewart family. See Stuart. 

Stirling Bridge, battle of, 153 ; map, 110, 

Ca 
Stockton, first railway, 590; map, 404, Ca 
Stoke, capture of gunnel at, 258 ; map, 

404 • Bb - » - 10 nA 

Stoneheuge(with picture), i i »Mip,42,Cd. 

Stour (stt76r), River Is : map, 42, Dd. 

Stourbridge (stur'brlj) fair, 93 ; map, 110, 

Strafford, Sir Thomas Weutworth, Earl of, 
resistance to forced loan, 370 : in Parlia- 
ment 377 : counsellor of the king, 383 : 
lord lieutenant of Ireland, 386; activity 
in the Second Bishops' War, 389 ; at- 
tainder and execution (with portrait), 

389-91. 
Strathclyde, 10: map, 42, Bb. 
Straw, Jack, 180. . . 

Stnmgbow (Richard de Clare), in Ireland, 

Stuart family, origin, 209 i lineage, 341 ; 
reigns in England, 349. 

Stuart sovereigns of Scotland and Eng- 
land, lineage of the, 470. 

Stubbs, Bishop, on Hubert Walter, 1-'. 
on Magna Carta, 140-1 ; on purveyance, 
107 : 011 Henry IV.. 210. 

Subsidies. 352. 

Succession to the English crown. See 
Monarchy. >IW 

Suffolk, Charles Brandon, Duke of, 293, 
'JOT. 

Suffolk, origin of the name of, 18 ; map, 

4 -- Dc - 
Supremacy, Acts of, 271, 290, 308. 

Surrey, Earl of, the poet, 278-9. 

' Sussex, origin of the name of, 18 ; map, 

12, Cd. 
Suzerain, 53. 
Swift, Jonathan, 40S. 
Swinburne, Algernon C, 628. 
Swiss, in the 14th and 15 centuries, H.4. 

206. , ... 

Swevn's (swan) conquest of England. 40. 
Syria, 558 ; map, 574, Pc. 

Tables, the Scottish. 387. 

Talavera (falava'ra), battle of, 5(9 ; map, 
574, Be. 

Taylor. Jeremy, 44'-'. 

Telegraph, electric, the first, 0J1 . 

Ten articles, the. -,•">• 

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (with portrait). 
626, 628. 

Test Act. the, 455, 589. 

Teutonic. See Germanic. 

Tewkesbury, battle of, 238; map, 110, 
Cb 

Texei, the, naval battle in, 431 : map, 
\ 574, Ca. 
I Thackeray. W. M.. 628. 



INDEX. 



671 



Thanes, 24. 

Thane's house, picture of, 25. 
Thanet (tha'net). Isle of, 17 ; map, 4'.', Dd. 
Theodore of Tarsus, 33. 
Theows (the'oz) (slaves) of the early Eng- 
lish, 21. 
Third Estate, the, 133, 150-51, 162, 483. 
Thirteenth century, survey of general his- 
tory, 131-4. 
Thirty Years' War, 343-4, 363-4. 
" Thorough," the policy of Weutwortli and 

Laud, 385. 
Ticonderoga (tlcondero'ga), Fort, 526. 
Tinchebrai (tinche'brai), battle of, 88; 

map, 111), Cc. 
Tintern Abbey, 06. 
Tin trade, ancient, 5. 
Tippoo (tTppob'), 557-8. 
Toleration Act, the, 487-8. 
Toleration, religious, growth of, 400-10. 
Tone, Theobald Wolfe, 555-6. 
Tonnage and poundage question. 373-4, 

378-0, 301. 
Torbay, 467 ; map, 404, Be. 
Torture, judicial use of, 320. 
Tory party, the. rise and origin of name, 
458-0 ; in the Revolution, 484 ; Jacobite 
reaction, 486-7 ; passage of the Act of 
Settlement, 405 ; party division under 
Anne, 408 ; support from the church, 
500-501 ; powerlessness and discontent 
under the first Georges, 510: the new- 
party under George III., 532 ; under the 
younger Pitt, 544 ; Canning's division of 
the party, 587-0 ; Peel's division of the 
party, 505. 
Tostig, Earl, 61-2. 

Toulouse (toblooz'), 54, 111 : maji, 574, Cb. 
Toulouse, battle of, 579. 
Touraine (tooran'), in the dominion of 

Henry II., 100; map, 110, Dd. 
Tower of London : {with picture from the 
earliest drawing), 65 ; murder of the 
princes in the, 240—41. 
Town dwellings, mediaeval. 104. 
Town meeting, the old English and the 

American, 22-3. 
•Towns, English : the rise, 74. 02-3, 125 : in 
the 15th century, 220-30; representation 
in Parliament, 146. 140-5(1, 230-31. 
Townshend (town'zend), duties, the, 537-8. 
Township, the early English, 22. 
Towton, battle of, 234 ; map, 110, Cb. 
Trade. See Commerce. 
Trafalgar (trafal'gar), battle of, 572-4 ; 

mn/i, 574, Be. 
Transformation of the world, the, 561-2. 
Transvaal (transval'), Republic of the, 617, 

(with map) 622-7 : map, 625. 
Travel, medieval, 105. 
Tredah (tre'da). See Drogheda. 
Trek, the great. 622. 
Trencher, the. 191. 

Trent, Council of. 251 ; /»<///. 574, Db. 
Trial by jury. See Jury trial. 
Trials by combat, or battle. 120. 
Triennial Bill, the second. 406. 510. 
Triple Alliance, the, 453-4. 



Trornp, the Dutch admiral, 431 . 

Troubadours, 57. 

Troyes (trwa), treaty of, 216; map, 110, 
Ec. 

Tsar (tsar), of Russia, the first, 253. 

Tudor family, lineage of the, 234, 241, 247. 

Tunis (tu'nts), pirates of, 438 : mini, 574, 
Cc. 

Tun-moot, the, 22-3. 

Turks : beginnings of the conquests of, 55 ; 
entrance into Europe, 164 ; capture of 
Constantinople, 203 ; their advance 
stopped, 253 ; last fight for Hungary, 
347 ; Crimean War, 566, 608-0 ; war with 
Russia (1^77), 568-9. 

Turnham Green, 404; map, 404, Cc. 

Two Sicilies, the Bourbon kingdom of the, 
4X1 1. 

Tyler, Wat. 180. 

Tyndale (ttn'del), John, 270. 

Tyreonnel (terkonel'), Richard Talbot, 
Earl of, 489. 

Uitlanders of the Transvaal, 625 7. 

Dim, battle at. 574 ; maji, 574, Cb. 

Dlster, massacre in, 302. 

Dlster, the kingdom of, 114-15; map, 1 1(1, 
Bb. 

Dlster, the Plantation of, 358-0. 

Dndertakers, the, 361. 

Dnfree, the, 21. 

Dniformity, Acts of, 200, 308, 450. 

Dnion Jack, the, picture, 558. 

Dnion of the early English churches, 33. 

Dnion of English kingdoms under Egbert, 
33. 

Dnion of England and Scotland : regal, 
349; parliamentary. 500. 

Dnited Irishmen, Society of, 555-6. 

Dnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- 
land, formation of. 558. 

Dnited States of America : gifts of England 
tn. v; in the colonial period, 328-9, 348, 
357 8, 384-5, 451-2. 470, 523; revolt and 
independence, 534-41 . 543 ; suffering from 
British orders in council and Napoleon's 
decrees, 576-7 ; war with England. 578, 
58(1-81 ; boundary treaties with England, 
661 ; civil war, 566, 612-14; French in- 
trusion in Mexico, 567 ; settlement of 
"Alabama Claims.'' 613-14, 616; fishery 
and seal disputes, 620 ; Venezuela ques- 
tion, — Spanish-American war, 621 -2. 

Dnited Provinces. See Netherlands. 

Dniversities. See Learning. 

Dtrecht (ii'trekt), treaty of, 470, 501-2; 
map, 574, Ca. 

Vane, Sir Henry (with portrait), 432-3. 
Vassals. 5.",. 

Yaudois (vodwa'), persecution of the. 438. 
Vega Carpio, Lope Felix de, 343. 
Venezuela (venezwe'la), dispute, the. 621. 
Venice (ven'Tce), 131 ; map, 574, Db. 
Vercelli (verchel'le), Book, the, 32. 
Vestry meetings. 24. 
Vexin (fat'sTn), 77. 
Victoria Cross, picture. 600. 



672 



INDEX. 



Victoria, Queen: accession, 596; marriage 
to Prince Albert, 598 ; death of Prince 
Albert, 612 ; proclaimed Empress of 
India, G17 ; Diamond Jubilee, 022 ; por- 
trait, 623. 

Vienna, the Congress of, 564 ; map, 574, 
Db. 

Vikings, the (with map), 37-8. 

Vikings' iron swords, picture of, 39. 

Villeins (vil'linz), villeinage, 72-4, 172, 
179-81, 255. 

Villiers (vil'yerz), Charles, 599. 

Vincennes (vinsenz'), death of Henry Vat, 
216; map, 110, Dc. 

Vinegar Hill, battle of. 557 ; map, 358, Cb. 

Vittoria (vetto'rea), battle of, 579 ; map, 
574, Bb. 

Voltaire, 477. 

Wace's poem, "The Brut," 102. 

Wagram (w'ag'ram), battle of, 580 ; map, 
574, Db. 

Wakefield, battle of, 234 ; map, 110, Cb. 

Waldenses (woldgn'sez). See Vaudois. 

Waldhere. 30. 

Wales : origin of the Welsh and their name. 
4. 19-21 ; survival of Christianity in, 26 ; 
wars with William Rufus, 86 ; subjuga- 
tion by Edward I.. 152 ; the first English 
Prince of Wales, 152 : wars with Henry 
IV., 208-9; incorporation into the Eng- 
lish kingdom, 277 ; mnji, 404, Bb. 

Wallace, William (with picture of his 
statue), 153 

Walpole, Sir Robert, his character and ca- 
reer (with portrait). 511-10. 

Walsingham, Sir Francis, 321-2. 

Walter, Hubert, archbishop, his work, 
124-5; his death. 137. 

Walter Map, 120. 

Wandiwash (wan'dlwash), battle of, 527 ; 
map, 520. Be." 

Wapentake, (wop'entakes), the. 22. 

Warbeck, Perkin, 258-9. 

War of the Austrian Succession, 4S0-81, 
520-22. 

War of Jenkins's Ear, 480, 515-16. 

War of the Polish Succession, 480. 

War of the Spanish Succession, 478-9, 400, 
400-502. 

Wars of the Roses, 232-43 : state of Eng- 
land before and after, 228-31, 242-5: 
map of England during, 233. 

Warwick (war'wik), the Earl of (the 
king maker), his lineage, 222; his part 
in the Wars of the Roses (with picture), 
234 8. 

Washington, George ; in the French and 
Indian war, 523 . 

Waterloo (Waterloo'), battle of, 564, 580 ; 
map, 574. Ca. 

Watling Street. 10 : »/»/', 8. 

Watt, James, and the steam engine. 540. 

Wealh (weel) (Welsh), the name, 20. 

Weaving. See Manufactures. 

Wedmore, peace of, 41. 

Wellington, the Duke of, 563-4, (with por- 
trait) 579-80, 587-91. 



Wellington-Peel Ministries, 589-90, 596. 

Wentworth, Sir Thomas. See Strafford, 
Earl of. 

Wergild, 20. 

Wesley, John and Charles, with portrait of 
John Wesley, 516. 

Wessex, origin and meaning of the name, 
18; map, 42, Bd. 

West Saxon kingdom, the, 17, 29, 33 ; 
map (Wessex), 42 Bd. 

West Saxon kings, lineage of, 51. 

Westminster (west'mTnster) Abbey, the 
first building of, 48 ; as represented on 
the Bayeux Tapestry. 47. 

Westminster Assembly, the, 4(17. 

Westminster Hall : built by William II. 
(with picture), 86-7 ; trial of King 
Charles, 418 ; trial of Warren Hastings, 
545. 

Westminster, Provisions of, 145. 

Westphalia, peace of, 544. 

Wexford, Cromwell's storming and mas- 
sacre at, 425 ; map, 55S, Cb. 

Whig party, the, rise and origin of name, 
45X-0 ; in the Revolution, 484 : party 
division under Anne, 40S ; strength of 
the party under George I., 509-10 ; op- 
position to King George's American 
war. 540 ; merged in the Liberal party, 
505-0. 

White Friars, 198. 

White monks, 05. 

White Ship, the sinking of the, 07. 

Whitefield, George, 516. 

Whitehall, execution of King Charles at, 
419. 

Wiclif, John, his religious and social 
influence (with portrait). 177-81 ; his 
Bible, 181, 185 ; his teaching in Bohe- 
mia, 206. 

Widsith. the Song of the Traveller, 30. 

Wight, Isle of 10 : escape of Charles I. to, 
417 : map, 42, Cd. 

Wilkes, John, 533-4, 537 S. 

William I. (the Conqueror), his claim to 
the English crown, 48, 59-60 ; his con- 
quest of England. 00-07 : his treatment 
of the English, 04-0, 75-0 ; his feudal 
system, 07-8 ; his Domesday Survey, 
72-4 : his death, 77. 

William II. (called Rufus), his character 
and reign, 82-7. 

William III. (of Orange) : as stadtholder of 
Holland, — resistance to Louis XIV., 
346 7. 478-9, 402-5 ; marriage to Princess 
Mary, 458; invitation to England, 466-7 ; 
receives the English crown, 484-6 i his 
reign (with portrait), 480-96. 

William IV., 590-96. 

William of Malmesbury, 94. 

William the Silent, Prince of Orange, 252, 
321. 

Williams. Roger, 409. 

Winceby, fight at, 400 ; map, 404, Cb. 

Winchester, the Roman city, 9 ; map, 42, 
Cd. 

Wine-drinking, mediaeval, 105. 

Witeuagemot (wit'enagemot), the, 26; 



INDEX. 



673 



Norman change in character, 75 ; its 
change of name to Great Council, 92. 

Witt, John de, 347. 

Woad, 6. 

Wolfe, Gen. James, with portrait, 520. 

Wolsey (wool'zi), Cardinal Thomas (with 
portrait), 264-9. 

Woman suffrage, 621. 

Wool, woolen manufactures. See Manu- 
factures. 

Worcester (woos'ter), battle of, 427-8 ; 
map, 404, Bb. 

Wordsworth, William (with portrait), 
582-3. 



World's Fair, the, 1851, 608. 
Wurtemburg, 568 ; map, 574, Cb. 
Wyatt's (wy'att) rebellion, 297. 

York, the House of, its derivation from 
Edward III., 201, 221, 227 ; its conflict 
with the House of Lancaster, 223, 231-8. 

York, massacre of Jews at, 127 ; map, 110, 
Cb. 

York, the Roman city, 9 ; map, 42, Cc. 

Young, Arthur, 546. 

Young Ireland party, 601, 607. 

Zwingli, Ulrich, 249. 



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